


les yeux fixes sur moi, comme un tigre dompte

by endofmeandeverything



Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: AU, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-26 08:34:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3844246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofmeandeverything/pseuds/endofmeandeverything
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Consider this prix-fixe,” Lee murmurs into his ear, fingertips moving delicately against the pulse thundering in Richard’s wrist.  Slowly he slides their fingers together.  “And the bill’s been taken care of.”</i><br/> </p><p>Richard is wealthy and Lee is talented.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There is a tall, well-dressed man standing in his kitchen.

For a moment Richard panics, thinking perhaps he’s missed a phone call from one of his secretaries informing him of a last-minute meeting and his heart nearly stops as he remembers his mussed hair, the tie loose around his shoulders, his unbuttoned collar.

Then the man turns and reveals himself to be no one Richard knows, nor anyone he ought to know.

Which means that there is a tall, well-dressed stranger standing in his kitchen.

Richard clears his throat, composing himself as much as he can with his heart still hammering.  

“Excuse me?”  He tries to imbue the inquiry with every ounce of disdainful force that he can.  Somehow he can’t bring himself to say what he actually means:  _who are you and what are you doing in my flat?_

The man appears unaffected by the poison in Richard’s tone.  He cradles a full wine glass in one hand, long fingers curled over the bowl as delicately as if it were a baby bird.  “Hello.”

The cavalier attitude sends myriad hideous possibilities (most of them straight out of action-thriller or mob films) flitting through Richard’s mind; he instinctively steps away when the man sways away from where he’s leaning on the counter and eats up the space between them with long strides. 

“I don’t believe we’ve met.”  It’s meant as a warning, but the man only chuckles and holds out his hand. 

“You’re right, we haven’t.  I’m Lee, and I’m very pleased to meet you, Richard.”  The words roll free of his mouth as if he’s earned the right to use that given name. 

Then he slides his hand free of Richard’s grip, pulling Richard’s fingers open and wrapping them around the glass.  His nervousness is exposed by the way the wine ripples in response to his trembling.  “I—” he begins, distracted by the scent of the wine as the stranger—as Lee—guides him into his own living room as if he’s the guest.

“Let’s have a drink, shall we?”  Lee asks, pressing him into a seat.  He smiles and winks; somehow it doesn’t seem cheeky.

When the man meanders into the kitchen to pour himself a glass, Richard’s eyes trace the crisp line of his clothes.  He’s trying to identify who he might be or where he’s come from.  All he can focus on is the hint of lean muscle beneath the tailored clothes, but everything about the man tells Richard he’s not any sort of hired muscle.  Tentatively, he packs his concerns involving murder or kidnap away.

Lee returns to the dimly-lit living room with his own drink: it’s Richard’s glass, but after taking a tentative sip he discovers it’s not one of his wines.

Befuddled, Richard swills the wine and makes a soft pleased noise; he realizes Lee’s heard him when a soft laugh brings him back to reality.  He can’t help his blush.  “I—” he tries for an explanation, but his thoughts flicker through his mind as quickly as shadows cast by a guttering candle.

Lee settles gracefully next to him and crosses his legs at the knee.  He’s too close for propriety; Richard bristles a bit and tries to decide whether it would be rude to move away.  He’s distracted by the bob of his visitor’s throat as he sips and by the echo of his own vocal approval of the vintage.  “A 2003 pinot noir.  Pallister Estates.  But you’ve probably figured that out already.”

The smile Lee directs at Richard is just as overly-familiar as the use of his name, as the companionable lack of space between them.  It’s as if they’re not strangers at all, and Richard has no idea what to make of it.  Whoever this man is, he isn’t playing by any rules Richard knows and it’s making him deeply uncomfortable.

Not as uncomfortable as Lee’s apparently versed knowledge of his preferences in wine.

“How did you—?”

“I’ve been given some valuable advice from a Mr. McTavish, who did ask me not to use his name in your presence.”  Lee winked and took another small sip.

“Graham told you…?”

“I believe that’s the one.  Some kindly friends you have, Richard.  He cares for you.”

Richard clears his throat, shakes his head as though he can rattle his thoughts into some semblance of order.  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what’s going on here.  Who are you?  And, begging your pardon, what are you doing in my house?”

“Mr. McTavish also advised me that you’re charmingly naïve about certain things.” 

A coy little smile perks the corner of the man’s mouth.  His eyes glisten with secrets—or  promises.  He rests one hand against Richard’s thigh, each finger curling with purpose, and then the heavy weight slides slowly to the strained tender inside Richard’s thigh. 

Things are spelled out much more clearly than they ever could’ve been in words.

Horror races through him and Richard jerks away.  “You’re a  _prostitute_ ?”

Graham.   _Graham_ .  Damn him! Richard’s going to kill him.

He nearly spills wine over his fine carpet trying to get away from that touch.

Lee is laughing at him—laughing!  It doesn’t seem like the kind of prank Graham might pull, which leaves only the horrible probability that it isn’t a prank at all and that the elegant man settled next to him is indeed a prostitute.  His ordered world turns on its axis, sending what little composure he’s manage to regain out the window.

“I don’t know what you’ve been told, sir, but I’m not in the habit of engaging…whatever you’ve been told—well, I’m glad you find this entire situation amusing!”

It’s difficult to be put off kilter in one’s own house, and worse to be derided for his justified confusion.  He finds himself standing helplessly furious at the man currently beaming at him.  It occurs to him that his fists are clenched at his sides like a petulant child’s, the stress in his shoulders sparking pain down every vertebra of his stiff back.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d leave,” he says finally.  It doesn’t come out as a command, but rather a request that Lee blithely ignores.  He sweeps to his feet, an advance Richard flees from with one panicked step backward.  He finds himself blushing, his fury and confusion choking him.  He shouldn’t be fleeing in his own home, but this man has thrown a wrench in everything he expects from his life.  “Please.”

“Richard, I’m not here to ruin your evening,” Lee soothes.  He bends and picks up the half-empty wine glass from its precarious perch on the edge of the coffee table.  He holds it out, balancing the stem delicately between two fingers, his body turned half away.  “Take it.”

Richard does as he’s told without thinking, then turns furiously away and storms into the kitchen just to escape.  He gulps the rest of the wine and refills his glass with the intention of swallowing it in one go, but a hand covers his and Lee has trapped him against the counter.

“Slowly,” he chides, fingers trailing up Richard’s arm.

The touch is electric; Richard’s entire body goes tense as those fingers trail higher and higher, sliding across his chest to deftly undo yet another button at Richard’s throat.

“Excuse you.”

A breathy laugh curls against his throat, but that’s the only place Lee is touching him.  Heat fills up the space between their bodies; Richard’s entire body breaks out in pins and needles.

Lee smells fantastic: like sunshine and fresh grass and some dusky, subtle cologne.  The heat and feel of him reminds Richard just how long it’s been since he’s had another

“I believe I asked you to leave.  I don’t know what sum you were promised, but I assure you I can match it."

“Richard.  I offer many, many services, but ‘leaving’ isn’t on the list.”

Lee slips his tie from around his shoulders.  The whisper of silk against pressed linen is familiar and suddenly much more audible than Richard has ever imagined it might be.  Lee touches his neck briefly.

“What are you afraid of?”

Richard glares a bit at his clasped hands on the counter, hating his own weakness.  “I’m not afraid.  I’m simply not interested in sampling your…wares.”

“You haven’t even seen the menu yet.”

Richard aches, tense and confused by his involuntary reaction to this man.  “I haven’t seen the price list either.”

“Consider this prix-fixe,” Lee murmurs into his ear, fingertips moving delicately against the pulse thundering in Richard’s wrist.  Slowly he slides their fingers together.  “And the bill’s been taken care of.”

Richard feels himself pulled inexorably back toward the couch, guided into a seat.  His face is flushed, his body moreso, and he hopes it’s only the wine.  Whatever it is Lee does, he does it well, because he feels himself trembling a bit and alight with curiosity and a passion he hasn’t felt in years.  He’s done without more often than not, but there’s some secret in Lee’s eyes that he wants to discover.

“So sit back,” Lee urges, “and enjoy the meal.”

Instead of coming closer, Lee leans back and beams down at him before sliding around behind the couch.  His fingers trail through Richard’s hair, nails scraping his scalp and bringing up goosebumps.  Then he began a slow, tentative massage.  It isn’t the first time someone’s rubbed his neck, but it is the first time Richard’s felt a little shock run through him every time those fingers dipped beneath his loosened collar.

His mind was still reeling.  His body reacted to every minute circle Lee made.  Relaxation mingled with curiosity and a vague arousal as Lee moved down the sides of his throat, moved from rubbing the knots from his shoulders around to tracing his collar bones.  He doesn’t realize until Lee leans over his shoulder and breathes against his throat that his shirt is half-opened and one broad palm is sliding slowly down the center of his chest.

He opens his eyes, lost, when the touch disappears.

Lee slides over the back of the couch and down between his legs.  He kneels carefully, hands resting on Richard’s knees.  “Okay?” he murmurs.  His voice is lower, huskier than Richard would have expected.  Whatever illusion he’s building, Richard thinks blearily, he’s doing it very well.  His eyes are steady on Richard’s face as he begins his massage again, running his hands up Richard’s thighs.

Richard can feel his breath picking up.  His blood is pounding in his ears.  He can’t look away.

Slowly, Lee slides up the helplessly sprawled length of Richard’s body, mouth and hands only increments from skin and Richard’s heaving chest.  They aren’t touching; the minute space between them filled with torturous heat as Lee leans in.  Richard can feel the movement of lips near his ear—how can he feel so much when Lee isn’t even touching him?  He aches everywhere, and lets out an embarrassingly loud, involuntary groan when Lee smiles a little and whispers: “Put your hands on me, Richard.”

Richard has to drop his head back and gasp for breath, fingers still clenched against the cushions of the sofa in some futile defense against whatever assault this man is leveling against his common sense.  Lee hasn’t moved any closer and it’s a struggle not to reach out and pull him down.  “I know you want to.”

“I—”

“Richard.”  Lee’s strokes down his arm, wrapping fingers around his wrist.  Then the other.  It nearly burns!

“I shouldn’t,” Richard gasps.  He wants to more than anything, but his mind won’t follow his orders, racing through all the reasons this is a bad idea, how he doesn’t know Lee, how he feels about all this. 

His hands are lifted, placed on slim hips.  Lee presses his hands down over the arch of bone.  

“Richard,” he murmurs, cupping Richard’s jaw and tipping his head back.  “Touch me.”

It’s a command, but Richard still whines and asks:  “Can I?”

Lee huffs and bends closer.  Their noses brush.  “Of course.”  His breath ghosts over Richard’s mouth, redolent of honey and wine.  A delirious thought inhabits Richard: where is there a vintage that tastes of Lee’s mouth?

Trembling, Richard untucks the crisp linen shirt and slides his hand over his sides.  That long, tall body is tight with muscle.  His fingertips glide around to find the base of his spine, savoring the heat of smooth skin.  “You’re lovely,” he murmurs dizzily.  “Can I—”

His own desperation makes it difficult to recognize himself.  Whatever Lee’s doing to him, it’s drowning his natural reticence.  His embarrassment over his current predicament is secondary to the weight of another body atop his.

“Anything,” Lee murmurs.  He bends and kisses, slow and sensual, tongue flicking Richard’s lower lip and then slipping into his mouth, to coax Richard’s hands into moving faster.  His own are busy undoing the remaining button on Richard’s shirt with deliberate slowness.  He pushes the cloth aside, moving his kisses to Richard’s jaw and his fingers to span the heaving ribcage.

Despite Richard’s protest, Lee slipped of his lap, letting Richard’s groping fingers push his shirt off strong shoulders.  His mouth travels, hot and eager, down Richard’s belly, tongue flicking into his navel, and then he presses his mouth against the bulge in his trousers.

“Shit!”

Lee chuckles and sits back, running one hand slowly down the tented fabric.  His long fingers slowly, slowly unbuckle Richard’s belt, the clink loud in the large room, then unbuttons his trousers and eases them open to expose his pants.

 

Richard can’t look away from him, his kiss-swollen mouth, his veiled, warm eyes.  Lee doesn’t look away either, working his clothes open without removing his gaze.  That bowed mouth tips up in a small half-smile that’s anything but arrogant, anything but mocking.  His gentleness is written all over his face.

 

“All right?” he murmurs again as he slides Richard’s pants down just far enough to expose his cock.

Before Richard can process the sight Lee is taking him into his mouth.  He groans and grips at the back of the couch, head falling back so he can desperately gasp for air.

A warm hand holds his length steady as wet warmth encompasses him and a clever tongue slips beneath the foreskin to toy with the slit.  “Jesus,” Richard gasps.

It’s been far, far too long and that mouth is far too pleasant sinking down on him.  Richard can barely lift his head, barely keep his breath; Lee hums softly and sinks down so far his nose brushes against Richard’s belly.

His fingers  loosen their grip on the couch and he buries them in Lee’s hair before abruptly thinking he ought to have asked first; some men didn’t like being guided and Richard really should have asked—

The impulse makes Richard jolt and suddenly all his fears return as he remembers the man kneeling between his legs is a stranger.  He doesn’t know his last name, he doesn’t know where he comes from, he doesn’t know anything but that the stranger is touching him in intimate ways he hasn’t experienced in years.  “No,” he gasps, pressing himself back into the couch and fumbling with his clothes; his knuckles rap Lee’s hard enough to make him hiss as he tries to get that talented hand off his prick, cover himself, escape.

Surprise is writ large over Lee’s face, and he cocks his head.  “Okay,” he murmurs, licking at his lips. He turns away delicately while Richard rights his clothes and crosses his arms over his chest to keep his shirt closed.

“Sorry,” he mumbles to his knees, “I’m sorry, I just…can’t.  Do this.  I mean.”

“It’s perfectly all right.”  Lee has righted his own clothes without Richard even noticing.  He looks just as well-groomed as when Richard first saw him, even his hair combed through.  The only indication of what they’d been up to was the pink in his cheeks, the swollen lips.  It’s baffling, because Richard can feel himself blushing painfully.  “Richard.”  He puts one hand on Richard’s shoulder, but removes it immediately when Richard flinches deeper into the sofa.  “Don’t be sorry.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Richard mumbles.  He’s afraid to look back at Lee because he feels like he’s been mesmerized, because he’s afraid of getting lost in the openness of those eyes again.  Helplessly, he adds: “I’m really am sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Lee says, easing onto the couch beside him.  “I told you we didn’t have to do anything you don’t want, and that’s still true.  There are plenty of people of people who want more from me than a quick blow-job or a fuck.”

The crudeness of the comment stands at odds to Lee’s benevolent gentleness and startles Richard.

“Would you really like me to go?”  The question is soft, genuine.

“I—yes.  Please.  Before I do something stupid.”

Lee is perfectly silent as he gathers his things and adjusts his clothes once more.  With his eyes closed, Richard can only sense him shuffling about the flat.

His only indication that Lee is still in the apartment is a murmured farewell.

“If you need anything, Richard, you can always call.” 

 

  
  


When Richard manages to collect the scattered pieces of himself and open his eyes, he finds that it’s dark in the flat.

  
There is a white business card on the table, adorned by only a name and mobile number.


	2. Chapter 2

“What was wrong with him?”

Richard hums, unable to register the question as he pores over the ledgers someone has slipped onto his desk at the last minute.  He’d be irritated if he knew who did it, but apparently someone in finance knows too well the times he goes to the toilet.  He resigns himself to another very late night.  (Although the work isn’t entirely unwelcome; it provides a distraction from thoughts he would rather not have when he’s home alone in the evenings.)

“Richard.”  Graham leans against his desk and brusquely removes the paperwork from his hands.

It’s always difficult to be annoyed with Graham (not that anyone else’s opinion will stall him once he’s set his mind to something), so Richard tries for pleading.  “I’ve really got to finish these—”

His only response is Graham replacing them in their binder and keeping them just out of Richard’s reach. “They’re not due for another two days and we’re pushing back the deadline for the Jackson project so I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time.  Now, what was wrong with him?”

Returned rather abruptly to the world of the living, Richard can only blink up at his friend.  “Who?”

“Pace.  What was the matter with him?  He said you sent him home.”

Richard is less than pleased to know that Lee’s been telling tales, but it occurs to him that Lee was working for Graham and not for him.  For some reason the thought is hurtful, though Richard doesn’t dwell on why.  He excuses his inappropriate attachment to a man he doesn’t know by assuring himself that Lee’s costly and therefore good at what he does, and what he does is professionally tell lies. 

As Graham scrutinizes his face, Richard wonders what else Lee shared.

Perhaps sensing that Richard is loath to speak on the subject, Graham presses on.  “You got any idea how difficult that lad was to find?  It took weeks to find an open space in his schedule.  He didn’t woo you with Shakespeare?  He’s supposed to be a bookish sort, among another things.  Handsome being one of them.  Prefer blonds, do you?  Or someone more of an age?”

With a heavy sigh, Richard resigns himself to this conversation.  He presses his fingertips into his eyes in hopes that the broadness of his palm will cover a blush that’s quickly bordering on painful.  “For God’s sake, Graham, there was nothing wrong with him.  He was a perfectly lovely young man.   You know, for a—”  The word chokes him; he has to clear his throat.

“Rent-boy?  Rent-man.  He aren’t _that_ young, if that’s what you were worried about.”

This is not at all going the way Richard hoped.  “While I appreciate that the gesture was made with the best of intent, was there a reason you planted what appeared to be a very expensive and entirely unappreciated gift in my flat without telling me?”

Graham grunts and pushes aside neat stacks of paper to seat himself on Richard’s desk.  He ignores the protesting noise.  “Ah, it wasn’t Pace, then.  He didn’t say much, cheeky bugger, but he thought it mighta been.  Said you were cagey.”

“I’m not cagey!”  Richard sits up straighter, a bit indignant.  “I just wasn’t interested!”

The brow Graham raises at him speaks volumes of just what Lee spilled. 

“This is the most humiliating thing to happen in my adult life,” he mumbles, rubbing his face.

He must look piteous enough, because Graham heaves himself off the desk and throws himself into one of the cushy chairs opposite it.  “Listen, Rich, didn’t mean to make you miserable.”

“What on earth were you thinking?  Have I ever given you the impression I was after more….”

“I swear, lad, if you use a five-syllable word to finish that sentence, I’ll finish you.”

“ _Lascivious attentions_ ,” Richard states, just to be ornery.  “Honestly, Graham, I don’t know what you were expecting.”

Graham is wearing that patient look he gets when he feels Richard is being particularly obtuse.  “When’s the last time you had a date?”

“I haven’t got the time for—”

“Went out?”

“I went out with—”

“No you don’t, he told me.  When’s the last time you had a conversation consisting of more than three words that wasn’t on business?”

“This one,” Richard retorts sourly.

“Point made,” Graham says, shrugging.  “You’re turning into a recluse and I don’t think you’re meaning to.  Was trying to make it easy on you, yeah?  No attachments, no commitments, nothing but fun.”

“Having sex with strange men is not my idea of fun.”

“Didn’t have to have sex with him.  You even look the lad up?  Quite talented, you know.  Went to Julliard and studied all sorts of things.  Could’ve had some decent conversation and, if what I’ve heard is true, quite the meal right there delivered to you.  Maybe he even woulda charmed you into bed.”

“Somehow I doubt it.  He was…insistent.”

“I’m insisting,” Graham said.  For a moment there was silence as Richard held his ground, then Graham sighed heavily and shrugged again.  “Just think on it, s’all I’m saying.  Can’t be half bad and besides, you have to admit he’s a looker.  Not my type, you know, what with the prick, but considering that you can’t fault my taste.”

At last Richard smiles.  Accompanied by a little laugh, it’s his forgiveness.  “I can’t, at that,” he replies. If it comes out slightly bitter, it’s only because Richard can’t deny the truth of it.  His most recent dreams can attest to that.

Graham excuses himself with another put-upon sigh.  He lingers in the doorway with one enormous hand wrapped around the sleek handle and gives Richard another penetrating look.  “Think on it,” he repeats.

Much to his own chagrin, Richard does.  He fully intends on returning to the paperwork Graham tucked away, but the calculations remain unintelligible as his mind flits back to his dreams.  He  rests his head in his hands and curses Graham for deliberately drawing his mind back to them; he’s trying to tuck them away, to dismiss them as nothing more than a product of long deprivation and stoked passion kindled by a handsome man.  But it’s been years since he’s been so easily taken; usually, Richard demands too much of his partners before he’ll tumble into bed with them, demands so much that often they tire of his reticence and move on to more accommodating partners.  And yet—

Richard’s never liked the idea of prostitution if only because he can’t even make himself vulnerable to those he trusts, much less a stranger.  Being seen for who he is while the other has the shield of anonymity, of farce, is terrifying.  And yet Lee seemed genuine in every mannerism, as though his ease isn’t affected at all, as though he truly wanted to be there on Richard’s sofa, bent over Richard’s lap.  That’s the danger, Richard supposes: the illusion.  Still, it makes him wonder whether what Graham said was true.  Is it possible he hurt Lee by sending him away?

The idea discomforts Richard, who’s used to taking the blame for failed intimacy.  Of course it wasn’t Lee, who was charming and accommodating every moment he was there and who didn’t leave of his own accord but rather at Richard’s behest.  Thinking of that open face creased with disappointment is more bothersome than it ought to be.

Lodged beneath his breastbone, the ache of sympathy becomes an urge to rectify any hurt he might have done.  Richard isn’t one who of those who can bear the burden of having hurt someone else.

He hardly sleeps that night and the next, and though Graham says nothing else about the ill-fated rendezvous, when he sees the tense set of Richard’s shoulders and the darkness beneath his eyes at the end of the week he gives him a knowing look.

It’s impossible to be annoyed with Graham, and Richard has never hated him more.

 

 _This is a terrible idea_ , Richard tells himself.  The hand holding the phone to his ear is trembling a bit, and the name and number on the little white card are blurring.  He bites at his bottom lip, but can’t bring himself to hang up.  He reminds himself that, while humiliating, at the very least this call will wither the growing seed of curiosity Lee planted inside him.

Nevertheless, Richard in his cowardice sends up a silent prayer as the phone rings for the fourth time: _please let him not answer_.  After all, it’s a Friday; it’s more than likely Lee has engagements this evening.

It’s not to be.  All his tentative composure deserts him when Lee’s voice rumbles over the line.

“Mr. Armitage.”

“I—is this—Mr., uh, Pace?”

“It’s Lee,” Lee laughs.  Just as it did the first time, the sincerity of it throws Richard off balance.  “I think you’ve seen enough of me to use my first name, don’t you?”

“Good God,” Richard mumbles.  This only elicits another laugh.  “Mr. Pace, I—well.”  He clears his throat.  The first thing he thinks of to say is:  “You told Graham about the other night.”

“I did.  Not nearly as much as you think, I promise.  Part of the bargain was that I was to report back to him, but you don’t have to worry about anything less-than-delicate reaching someone else’s ears.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Richard tells him.

“Are you sure?”

Richard considers lying, but only for a moment. “No.”

“I know.”

Richard makes a frustrated sound.  He can’t muster a complete thought, much less articulate why he’s called.  He clears his throat again to buy himself some time, but Lee is having none of it.

“Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Armitage?”

There’s a plausible lie somewhere in his mind: Richard searches desperately for it and hopes Lee takes his silence as shyness.  “I suppose I wanted to apologize for sending you out so rudely.  Graham told me that perhaps you thought….”

Lee hums quietly on the other end of the line, and when he speaks Richard wishes he were anywhere but in his office.  Heat floods through him just as it did that night: unexpected and unwanted.  What in the world possessed him to call?  What a foolish, thoughtless thing to do—

“You’ll just have to make it up to me,” Lee murmurs, as much promise in his voice as was in his eyes.  Richard really ought to hang up.  “I was looking forward to getting that rather impressive dick in me.”

Richard chokes, but his body responds in a way that makes him wish he weren’t in his office.  “ _Lee_!” he hisses, covering his burning face.  He fumbles for the clicker that closes the blinds on the glass walls of his office.

Lee chuckles.  “Well, it’s true.”

Feeling shy, like this wasn’t a business arrangement at all but rather a fumbling adolescent date, Richard slumps further in his chair and mumbles: “Bet you say that to all the lads.”

“Only the ones with huge cocks,” Lee teased.   Then, more gently: “Why are you really calling, Richard?”

The question feels like a trap, like Lee can see straight through him and watch his metamorphose trying to make room for Lee inside him.  “I,” he begins.  He pauses to gnaw his lip.  “Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t sure?”  He hates the way he sounds, young and questioning and not at all in control of the situation.  He hates not having control, particularly of himself.

“Of course.”  He likes the sound of Lee’s voice, the quiet acceptance in it.  “Do you want to know what I think?”

Lee must sense his nod, but his throat is too tight to speak.  “Yes,” he manages.

“I think you need me.  To show you what you want.”

“Yes,” he murmurs again.  It sounds like a confession.

“Are you free this evening?”

Richard is, but all his uncertainty comes welling up again.  There’s an excuse on his tongue, but Lee continues before he can speak.

“Before you lose your nerve.”

Once again Lee has sensed his turmoil.  Richard reminds himself that the man is plying a trade, that he’s selling himself, that of course he wants another tryst, another payment. 

“I’ll be home at eight o’clock this evening.”

Lee hums; Richard can hear the scratch of a pen on paper.  Then Lee’s voice deepens and he asks: “Don’t you want to see the price list?”

“Oh.  Yes, I—I’m sorry, I don’t do this often.  I’ve never done this.  The protocol….”

“Very professional, Mr. Armitage,” Lee teases.  Then he lets out what can only be called a giggle.  He names a sum that makes Richard loath himself for his earlier ingratitude to Graham, but he agrees and is instructed on how to go about making payment.

“Good.  I’ll see you at eight tonight.  Don’t worry, I remember the way.”

Richard can only imagine the wink that accompanies this reminder.

 

Lee appears with another bottle of wine, looking as trim as any young businessman on the slow climb up the corporate ladder.  He holds it out as if he’s a guest, as if Richard hasn’t just transferred a very large amount of secured funds into a bank account he’s never seen before.  He lets Richard take his coat and hang it by the door.

“Well,” Lee asks, “how do you feel about paella?”

The question is so unexpected Richard thinks he must have misheard.  Lee arches one brow and holds up a heavy paper bag that Richard recognizes as belonging to a very upscale imports market in lower Manhattan.

“I didn’t have any of Mr. McTavish’s excellent advice to lead me to a proper dinner, but I figured I’d stick with a staple of any good palate.  And if you don’t mind me saying so, I can make a mean seafood paella.”

Richard is still standing stunned, unsure how to respond.  This isn’t what he expected at all.

“Don’t tell me you’re allergic.”  Lee doesn’t sound anxious at all.  He smiles and moves around Richard and toward the kitchen.

Richard follows, smiling wryly.  “Something tells me you already know the answer to that question.”

Lee turns to look over his shoulder and his grin wrinkles his eyes.  He unpacks the bag with neat, efficient movements, revealing a cache that looks as if it came from a professional kitchen.  “Google tells me you’re a regular at Le Bernadin on Friday nights.”  He shrugs.  “I took my chances.”

“Paella sounds lovely,” Richard murmurs, fascinated.

Here is Lee, inhabiting his house as if he belongs here once more, but this time Richard was prepared for him.  It takes him aback, how easy it's becoming to accept this.

“Did you….”  He clears his throat.   “I thought….”

“I thought we might make it together,” Lee coaxes, holding out his hand in welcome.  “Unless you’re a disaster in the kitchen.  That’s a detail I haven’t sussed out, but I’m happy to try.”

Richard blushes but comes closer, lured by Lee’s demeanor.  Perhaps this night won’t be so awful after all.  “You aren’t at all what I expected,” he admits.  He feels sheepish, as if he’s talking to a new friend rather than a man he’s hired to…his mind refuses to complete that thought.  “I’m sorry about….”

Lee nudges him playfully with his shoulder.  “What’s there to be sorry for?  Let’s get this on or we’ll be eating at midnight!”

In awe at the array before him (and suddenly hungry when before he was merely nervous), Richard shakes his head.  “You brought everything.”

“Except the kitchen sink,” Lee quips.  “And a pan.  I trust you have one.  You can’t possibly have a personal chef with all his own utensils.”

“I mostly eat—”

“Nothing, as I hear it.”

“Graham is…overprotective.”  It’s embarrassing to admit something like that.  As if he’s a child, as if he isn’t a grown man perfectly capable of running his own life and his own company.  “I’m not sure what he’s told you, but I’m not…I don’t….”

“Richard,” Lee murmurs, and briefly touches his jaw, coaxing him to look up.  “I swear, half the words I’ve ever heard out of you are ‘I’m sorry.’”  He grins, leans in close, and Richard’s heart leaps at the idea that he might receive a kiss.  Lee doesn’t kiss him though, only blows a little air against his mouth. “Why don’t we talk about something more interesting?”

“I’m sorry,” Richard replies automatically, and Lee starts laughing.

“And I’m hungry,” he quips back. “How are you with deveining shrimp?”

“I’ve never done it,” Richard admits.

This time Lee’s laugh feels like a compliment; he blushes in pleasure.  “Well, that’s one question about you answered.”

“I’m—”

“If you say ‘sorry’ one more time, I’ll tape your mouth shut!” 

“I’ll try.”

As it turns out, Richard isn’t quite useless; he’s quite good at following instructions, and at stirring.  As for Lee, he seems to know the recipe by heart and doesn’t so much as look down as his clever hands peel and chop and portion colorful spices and herbs, as he rinses the mussels, keeping up a steady stream of mindless chatter as he does so.  He’s just as literate as Graham had promised, and there’s nearly a quarter-hour wherein nothing gets done as they argue over the thematic points of Richard III and finally call a truce so they don’t burn the rice.

At last Lee declares it nearly finished, then he says, “Hey, come over here.”

Richard blinks; he’s been hypnotized by Lee’s voice.  He looks up from the simmering pot to find Lee holding his hand out again, beckoning from the other side of the island.  Slowly he comes around, and Lee wraps a hand around his wrist.  “How about I teach you something new?” he murmurs, pressing against Richard’s side and curling their hands together over the blade.  “Carefully now, it’s easy.  Just slit down the back like this, see?  And take out that black bit.  Perfect!”

Lee beams down at him. 

The praise makes Richard unbearably happy; he flushes.  “Perhaps you should be a culinary instructor.”

“Did you just smile?  Careful, there’s fines for that,” Lee quips.

Richard can’t help but laugh at that.  He wonders where all his nerves have disappeared off to.

Then Lee’s lips brush the corner of his mouth and he gasps and nearly slices open his fingers.  Lee takes the knife from his hand and presses it flat against the countertop, then takes his chin in gentle fingers and turns his head to give him a proper kiss.  It’s slow, gentle, barely more than a brush of dry lips that Richard chases after involuntarily.

“Lee,” he breathes.

Perhaps it’s the dim light of the kitchen, perhaps the homey sound of bubbling water, perhaps the scent of food and Lee’s cologne, but Richard’s heart is racing again and the unwillingness to unveil himself has dissipated with every passing moment.  Now he stands looking at Lee and wondering how to earn himself another kiss, another caress.  He craves the pressure of that sure hand that guided his own.

“Richard,” Lee says, eyes gleaming.  His fingertips slip down the line of Richard’s jaw and then along the column of his throat to press against his breastbone.  Another moment of silence passes between them as Richard gazes at his face.  “Remember: if you want something, all you have to do is ask.”

“I do,” Richard admits dizzily.  He presses his sweating palms against his thighs as if that will hide his trembling.  The dimples in Lee’s cheeks deepen as his smile widens.

“’Do’ what?” Lee asks.  Surely he can feel how hard Richard’s heart is pounding.

“Want.”

“And what do you want?”  Lee’s fingers curl, scraping against his chest.  Surely he knows what Richard means; his eyes aren’t at all questioning as they search Richard’s face.

Richard has to take a moment to think about it, trying to gather his thoughts.  Lee isn’t coming any closer tonight, isn’t leaning in to take the lead.  There’s barely enough air between them to breathe, but Richard manages one shaky inhale.  “You,” he offers, hoping it will be enough.  The dreams and desires he didn’t leave himself time to dwell on aren’t fully formed.  In truth, Richard has no idea what he wants.

 “I’m here.”  The words are more air than sound.  He licks Richard’s bottom lip then draws slowly away, his hand sliding down his belly before dropping away.  “And I’ll give you whatever you want in due time.  Now let’s get this finished off.”

Richard rests his trembling hands on the countertop and watches as Lee finishes their dinner and turns the heat down so nothing burns.

His eyes gleam green, then gray, then gold as he moves around the room turning off the lights.  At last he steps to Richard’s side again and takes his hand, twining their fingers together.

“Come on,” he breathes out, squeezing hard as if that will calm Richard in any way.  “Let’s find out what I can do for you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Lee deposits two glasses and the open bottle on the coffee table.  He pours translucent golden wine into glasses Richard’s never used before and offers him one.  “Moscato,” he says.  “Another first for you tonight.  Maybe not the last.”

“It’s sweet,” Richard murmurs, surprised by the way it sparks against his palate.  Unusual, but somehow it seems to suit Lee.  Sunshine in a bottle; wasn’t he thinking that very thing?  The thought makes him grin into his glass.

“It’s a seafood thing,” Lee explains.  Then his nose wrinkles and he makes an exaggeratedly rueful face.  “I mean, it goes with seafood.  You’re throwing me off my game, Richard!”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re being obstinately charming,” Lee counters, and takes another sip.

“I’m not,” Richard says, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.  “I’m a lot of things, but charming isn’t a word that’s often used to describe me.”

“Adorable?”

“Not a word a grown man wants to hear with regard to himself.”  Nevertheless, Richard goes warm at the compliment.

Lee chortles.  “’The truth shall set you free’ or something like that.  It’s the blushing.”

Somehow his hand has found its perch at Richard’s nape, blunted nails tracing the hairline against the grain.  Richard hums, hovering somewhere between contentment and urgency as his skin prickles.  It feels like nerves, this churning in his guts, but much more pleasant.  Heat settles low in his belly, an ember waiting to be stoked; Richard tells himself to be patient, not to embarrass himself by demanding another kiss.  There’s a progression here he doesn’t understand and while he’s usually the one dictating pace, it’s thrilling and comforting to let someone else guide him into unfamiliar territory. 

“That’s what I like about you.”

“What?”

“The blushing,” Lee clarifies.  “It’s not something a guy expects from someone like you.  You’re a mess of contradictions, Richard.  It’s refreshing.”

The idea that Lee might like him as a person has never occurred to him.  He blinks, unable to process this information.  “Do you?  Like me, I mean.” 

Under Lee’s level eyes, he wishes he could control his mouth.  Silence has always been his strong suit, but he keeps blurting out things he means to keep to himself.  Then a crooked smile blooms on Lee’s face, and he has to look away before he leans in to kiss the lines around that mouth.  “Of course.  I don’t take clients I don’t like.  Drink your wine.”

“But you’d never met me before.  How could know you’d like me?”

A firm thumb is rubbing the tender place just behind his left ear, accompanying fingers playing against the other side of his throat.  “I’d met Mr. McTavish.  He’s a fine man, that one, and he obviously loves you.  That alone speaks volumes for your character.”  After another long sip and an increased pressure that mitigates the tension Richard feels day-in and day-out, he continues.  “You learn to read people, doing what I do.  You’re a businessman, you must understand.  You must be good at it, too, or you couldn’t have built what you’ve built.”

Richard snorts, remembering all too well the games of cat-and-mouse that precede any important deal.  “It is sort of a science.”  The wine is settling in, a spark to the banked flame in his belly.  With a start he realizes his glass is empty and that he wants another, though he’s not one to drink to excess.  He grips the glass and Lee reaches out gracefully, anticipating as usual what Richard wants.  He doesn’t stop touching Richard as he refills their glasses.

The second glass is made better by the anticipation of the sparkle against his tongue; he drinks again, and savors the taste even more.

“An art,” Lee corrects gently.  His hand moves lower, grinding into the stiff muscle of Richard’s shoulder in stark counterpoint to the soft caresses he bestows intermittently.  “People can always surprise you.”

“You’re a surprise,” Richard admits.  “I don’t know what to make of you.  I didn’t think—when I called I thought—Well, I’m not sure what I thought. ”

“You expected me to jump you?  Ravish you?”

Richard shrugs.  “I don’t know how this works.  It’s…something I don’t understand.”  He knows he’s getting a bit drunk from the way he leans into Lee’s touch, unperturbed by the way they’re pressed together.  An arm slides over his shoulder, and Lee’s nose brushes the curve of his ear, followed shortly by lips and teeth in a gesture that sends a jolt straight to his cock.

“Lucky you have an experienced guide, then, huh?”

There’s nothing to do but agree: to close his eyes to mask his uncertainty.

Lee meets him half way, tipping his head just enough to avoid a collision.  It feels like the first kiss he’s ever had in his life: electric, ecstatic, fervent.  He opens his mouth a bit, hoping Lee will follow suit, hoping for a press of tongue, the pressure of teeth, _anything at all_.  Instead he receives only a hand pressed against his cheek, stilling him.

Perhaps it’s all the wine, but he loses his balance and catches himself on Lee’s thigh, gripping hard as Lee’s other hand gripped his arm to hold him up.  The heat of Lee’s skin radiates through the linen of his trousers, burning Richard’s palm.  He grips harder, shuddering when he feels the clench and release of that lean muscle as Lee pulls him in closer.  He wants to shove that cloth out of the way and touch the skin he got a taste of that night, perhaps even more. 

The inexorable movement of their lips together is fluid as the tide; Lee builds a rhythm of increasing pressure that’s easy to follow, teasing his mouth open until the tip of a tongue flicks against his bottom lip, suckles gently and then moves away just as Richard leans forward, eager for more.  He’s aware that he’s digging his fingers in too hard, that he’s probably leaving marks, but all Richard needs is another taste of honeyed breath before he loses his mind.

A whine escapes him unbidden, and Lee draws back and presses the pad of his thumb to Richard’s parted lips; need makes him bold, and he bites down hard enough that he gets a hiss.

“Sh,” Lee laughs.  “There’s plenty more where that came from, trust me.  For now, though—”

Abruptly the gravity of the body next to him disappears and Richard is left reeling as Lee hoists himself to his feet and disappears into the kitchen.  His entire body is thrumming with restrained energy; should he have pressed for more, asked for more?  Would Lee have given it to him if only he’d asked?  Or would he still be adrift in in his ill-fitting skin, struggling to catch his breath as Lee tinkered about with their dinner.

Before he can decide it’s a bad idea, he pours himself another glass and drains half of it in one swallow.  When he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, he marvels at how swollen his mouth is.  Perhaps this is what Lee wants: Richard couldn’t ask him to leave now even if he wanted to.  And he doesn’t want to.  What he wants is to chase Lee into the kitchen and pin him against the counter, to grab his face and _make_ him deepen his kisses, make him desperate and dizzy the way Richard is.

“Here.”

Lee appears with a small plate and a fork, pressing them into Richard’s hand.  Richard stares at the succulent meal there: it’s perfectly golden, bright and cheery amid the cool grays and blues of the flat, just as incongruous as Lee himself, another tiny bright point in what now seems a somewhat monochromatic life.  The exotic scent wafts up in curls of steam.  “Do you expect me to eat after that?” he croaks.

His stomach rumbles.

A little snort of laughter escapes Lee as he settles back down with his own plate.  “I’d say something smart about needing your energy later, but I’m all out of wit tonight.”

“Your own fault.”

The look Lee levels at him is grave and hot.  “I don’t think so,” he admits.  Richard may be imagining things, but he thinks Lee might be trembling a bit.  A strange boldness comes over him and he drops his plate onto the table and takes Lee’s from him, leaning in and grabbing his collar to drag him into another kiss.

“Decided what you want, then?” he breathes into Richard’s mouth.  It makes him sloppy, needy.  He rakes his fingers through the deliberate mess of Lee’s hair and grips what he can to hold him still as he takes what he wants.

“ _You_ ,” he repeats, mouth following the arc of that cheek down to his jaw, across the hint of stubble there and to the hot skin of his throat.  He inhales deeply and tries not to mar the golden skin.  It’s difficult: every atom of him is vibrating with the need to draw some sort of equal reaction from Lee’s.

“Finally,” Lee breathes.  Clever fingers pluck polished buttons from their housing.  “I knew you had it in you.”

“Please stop talking,” Richard groans.  He lets Lee pull his shirt off and toss it to the floor, but this isn’t what he wants.  What he wants is much more instinctual: Lee naked, Lee exposed to him as he’s been exposed to Lee since they first laid eyes on one another.  And yet Lee lays beneath him, clothed and in control, though his breathing is somewhat labored.  “Can I—?”

“Whatever you want,” Lee reminds him, brushing the tips of their noses together.  His fingers span the muscle of Richard’s back, easing into the dell of his spine and crawling downward.  It’s impossible not to push up into the touch and yet impossible to move away from the body beneath him: a terrible conundrum that Richard solves by grinding down as hard as he can as soon as Lee’s hands reach his waistband.

Richard’s hands are shaking with urgency as he tugs at Lee’s buttons.  His movements are nowhere near refined, but he gets the job done and practically tears the offending article off, throwing it away only to reveal broad shoulders and a smattering of freckles that are entirely unexpected and yet inestimably suited to Lee.  Reverently he traces lines between them, then bends to put his mouth to work as he struggles to get Lee out of his trousers.

Ever cooperative, Lee reaches behind himself to grip the arm of the sofa as he lifts his hips in one sinuous undulation to let Richard slide his trousers and pants off his hips and then down those endless legs.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asks, parting his knees a bit more, letting Richard look to his heart’s content at the fine dark hair leading from navel to groin and the half-erect cock there.  Richard can hardly keep his eyes fixed in any one location as light plays over every flex of muscle. Blindly he grips one ankle and draws off one sock.  He turns his gaze to the arch of that foot, then presses his mouth to the delicate arch of bone in the ankle, tracing up the arch of calf to the knee, then up and up and up the inside of that thigh until he can lave his tongue over the sharp hip bone.  He treats the other leg in the same manner and is well satisfied to see Lee at last responding to his touch as fervently as he responds to Lee’s.

Richard crawls up over him and leans down to kiss him, moaning wantonly as Lee grips his backside and pulls him down hard.  “Please, can I—?”

“Let’s get your clothes off, yeah?”

Lee tips his head to let Richard bite at his neck as he slides hands between them to undo his belt and slip one hand inside, gripping his prick firmly and giving a hard stroke.

“Oh,” Richard gasps, humping forward helplessly into that tight grip.

“Do you want to fuck me, Richard?” Lee whispers into his ear.  A breathy laugh accompanies a swift twist of his head and a thumb slipping overtop, smearing the droplets gathered there.  “Is that what you want?”

“Would you let me?” Richard groans, resting his forehead against Lee’s shoulder.  He’s panting hot and wet against already-damp skin.  Strong legs twine around his waist as Lee jerks his pants off.

His answer comes when Lee twists out from underneath him to grasp at his discarded trousers, producing a condom and an innocuous packet of lube.  The lube he hands to Richard, but the condom he tears open with his teeth and urges Richard back.  “Let me?”

The familiar slip of latex over sensitive skin makes his mouth fall open; he droops against Lee’s shoulder.  “Please.”  He can think of nothing but the way their flesh melts together, sweat-slick skin sliding sweetly and Lee’s breath curling against his ear.  It’s all he can do to breathe, to give empty pleading kisses that articulate what he cannot: _I’ve never wanted anyone as badly as I want you_.

“Give me that, and I’ll give you this,” Lee laughs, plucking the packet from Richard’s useless fingers and using his teeth to open that as well.  “Now, watch me.”  He spills the viscous fluid over his fingers and arches back, every muscle straining as he reaches between his thighs and promptly slides two fingers into himself.

Richard groans and has to grip his own cock as he watches Lee’s fingers disappear into himself.  He seems happy enough to be watched, laughing a little breathlessly and perhaps writhing more than he ought with just two fingers to slick himself.  He twists and curls, arches his back and moans, and Richard tears his gaze away lest he finish things more quickly than he wants.  “Please,” he begs again, though he doesn’t know what he’s begging for.  “Lee, please.”

“Come here then,” Lee pants, wiping slick fingers on his own thigh and reaching out to take Richard by the shoulders.  He pulls him down between his legs, head tilted awkwardly against the side of the couch as he presses their mouths together and uses lean thighs to guide Richard in closer.  “Come on, Richard.  I know you’ve got something to give me.”

“Now?” pants Richard.  “Now?”

The slow slide in is nearly torture: he can’t remember sex being this good before.  Lee sets the motion, rolling his hips down, using one leg to urge Richard forward until he can go no further.  “God!”  He bites down without thinking, all heaving desperate energy, and then wraps an arm around Lee’s waist and drags him down into every thrust.  He’s never driven sounds like these from a man before: shocked little grunts punctuated by cut-off cries.

“Is this all right?” he hears himself gasping, but he can’t wait for a response.  It’s been too long, far too long, and Lee is making desperate noises to urge him on.

“That’s it,” he whispers, “that’s it,” he moans, “give it to me.” Finally it becomes too much and Richard bites down hard to stifle a choked-off groan. 

Minutes pass, perhaps hours, and Richard collapses atop Lee’s recumbent form, still shuddering with exertion and near to tears.  For a few moments, all Richard is capable of is gasping into hot skin, then he sniffs mumbles:  “Did you…?  Did you come?”

Lee strokes sweat from his brow and gives him a tender look.  “You were busy,” he says.  His mouth quirks up in that smile again.  Richard strokes the lines around his eyes, then rests his head against his shoulder and exhales what feels like all the disappointments of his life.  Whatever world waits for him outside is diminished for the time being.

After a time, Lee lets Richard fall free of his body and delicately if messily disposes of the condom.  His arms wind around Richard’s shoulders, easing him down to rest his aching, awakened flesh.  “Sh,” he murmurs, one finger tracing the shell of Richard’s ear.  “Rest.”

 

Some time later—it must be past midnight—Richard comes back to himself.  He sighs, watches the gooseflesh rise is wake of his breath.

“Can I ask you something?”

Lee hums agreement, still trailing fingers through the sweat drying between Richard’s shoulder blades.  Sated and sleepy, Richard’s can’t stop the words tumbling free from his mouth.

“You needn’t answer if it makes you uncomfortable or, or….”

“Of course not.”  The solid response makes it clear to Richard that is Lee doesn’t want to answer, he won’t.  It’s startling, coming from the man who insisted that whatever Richard might want, he would grant.

After a heavy swallow to down this unexpected fact, Richard asks: “How did you get here?”

Richard can sense Lee’s smile, though he can’t see it.  The soothing little caresses don’t change in the slightest.  “By cab.  You didn’t think I took the subway, did you?”

Mildly annoyed by the dismissal, Richard pinches his flank.  “Don’t be cheeky.  I mean _here_ , this….job.  This thing you do.”

A heavy sigh lifts Richard’s head from its resting place, and he props himself up on one elbow to look down at a face that reflects his own satisfaction.  Lee runs a hand over his hair then shakes his head a bit.  “Now who’s being cheeky?”

Immediately Richard ducks his head.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

Instead of reprimanding him for the apology, Lee only shrugs one shoulder and draws Richard back down into the loose embrace. As if to reassure Richard that he hasn’t offended, he tangles their legs together.  “Why not?  It’s a salient question, right?”

“I suppose.  I did say you needn’t answer.”

After a brief pause, Lee speaks.  “I’m not ashamed of this, you know.  I hope you don’t expect me to be.  I like what I do.  Think of it as therapy of a sort.  I make people happy, and that makes me happy.  And there aren’t enough happy people in the world.”

“Sex makes people happy?”  Richard can’t keep the incredulity out of his voice.

“Not sex.  Company.  Understanding.  Commiseration.  I suppose I said ‘therapy of a sort’ because it isn’t therapy.  I don’t _demand_ anything, I don’t have to make anyone _think_.  It’s the opposite, actually.  People overthink everything most of the time, and I like giving people the room to breathe and just _be_ , just exist, even if it’s only for a little while.  And sometimes people just need a friend.”

“But you aren’t really their friend, are you?  You’re…are you even you?”

“Of course I’m me, who else would I be?”

Richard closes his eyes.  “I don’t know,” he murmurs.  “Someone else.  Whoever they want you to be.”

Lee rubs up and down his arm and tucks his chin against the top of Richard’s head.  “I can be someone else.  Sometimes I have to be someone else, someone who likes…oh, I dunno.  Getting smacked around a bit, or on one memorable occasion the one to do the smacking.  But I suppose every person I _can_ be _is_ me, at least a little bit.  So I’m always me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You think this isn’t who I am?”  Lee ducks his chin to look down at Richard, one inquisitive brow raised.  “Who do you think I’m being now, Richard?”

“Someone I want you to be.  You…know things.  About me.  You see me, or see what I want.  And you’re that.”

A rumbling chuckle is his answer.  “No.  People can sense fakery, you know.  They can tell when people are lying to them.  There are men who want that, or who want me to be something I’m not, and those men don’t come to me.  There are others out there who can give them a blank slate, but I’m not one of them.  The Lee in your bed is the same Lee that goes to the grocery store and pays his bills and visits his family and lives his life.  I am who I am, and I offer what I can, but beyond that….”  He shrugs diffidently.  “This may not be all of me, but it is me.”

For some reason, Richard can’t bring himself to believe him.  It’s an easy thing to fall into illusion when desire is muddling your thoughts, but lying spent in sober reality is another thing.  That Lee is genuinely kind he can believe.  He can even believe that Lee enjoys his company.  But to imagine that there exists a person for whom artifice does not exist: that’s beyond Richard’s comprehension.  His entire life if built on artifice: a façade of confidence, surety, success.  A façade of contentment, even.  It’s impossible to live with every facet of yourself on display for the world to judge.

Perhaps sensing his turmoil, Lee touches first his temple, and then runs a long finger down to bridge of his nose.

“There’s more to you than even you think,” Lee tells him in a low voice.  “Perhaps you can’t see the truth of others because you can’t see the truth in yourself.”

“A philosopher, are you?” Richard mumbles.

He falls silent as the words settle inside him.  Beneath his ear, Lee’s heart beats steady and sure, and his body is languid beneath the weight of Richard’s arm.  After a moment, he shakes free of the troublesome thoughts this revelation has dredged up.  “Did you really let someone spank you?” he asks.  This earns him a swat to his own backside before Lee nudges his head up to lavish attention on his bruised mouth.

“I don’t kiss and tell,” murmurs Lee, deepening the bruise not doubt blossoming on his lower lip.  His index finger dips into Richard’s navel before tracing the line of hair beneath downward.

“You’re—mm—trying to distract me,” Richard accuses.  His body is rallying to the demands of Lee’s touch.

Lee hums.  “’S it working?”  He slides an open palm down Richard’s thigh and tickles the tender place behind his knee.

“God, yes.”

Suddenly Lee throws him onto his back and straddles his hips, pinning his wrists to the bed.  He grins wolfishly, then laughs and kisses between Richard’s eyes.  “Ready for lesson number four?”

“ _God yes_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might rewrite the sex...I don't like it.


	4. Chapter 4

“So you fucked him, did you?”

Richard nearly has a heart attack and looks up to find Graham smirking at him.  At her desk a few meters away, Fran is very determinedly not looking up from reconciling his schedule for May.

“Good God, Graham, shut the door at least!” he hisses, beckoning his friend in with frantic waves of his hands.  When there is a safe glass barrier around him and his private life, he demands: “Are you trying to make me sound like a pervert?”

“They don’t know he’s a whore,” Graham said.  “I’d wager anyone overheard that is happy you found someone to fuck.”

Richard only sighs.  “Why do you always bring these things up in the office?”

“Because it’s the only place I can catch you.  You’ve been disappearing these last few weeks.  Took me a bit to realize where you were getting yourself off to, but I sorted it.”  Graham dropped into a chair and tapped the arms expectantly.  “Your face says it all.”

“I’m not that transparent,” protests Richard.  He wonders if everyone knows something’s changed in his life; Fran and Philippa have been sneaking him little smiles lately, and the last few times he’s caught Aidan chatting in the halls the conversation abruptly curtailed at his approach.  He thought it was shame over being caught gossiping (Richard’s lost track of how many times Ian’s breathed down his neck about his penchant for chatter), but now he’s not so sure.

Graham puts a halt to this train of thought.  “Getting some will do wonders, or didn’t I tell you?”

“Don’t be smug,” Richard tells him.  He closes his laptop on his work, sensing this isn’t going to be a short conversation.

“Go on,” he sighs, waving a hand.  “Gloat.”

“Told you I did it for your sake, nothing to gloat about.  You look better than I’ve seen you in years, Rich.  You like him, then?  Or are you testing other waters?”

Richard’s blush speaks for itself, and Graham narrows his eyes.  “Just Pace then?”

“He’s…comfortable.” 

“ _’Comfortable’_?”  There’s a warning in Graham’s tone.  He stares Richard down for a moment, and Richard isn’t sure what he’s ashamed of.  A month ago it might have been that he was paying a man to sleep with him, but now there’s something more incriminating to hide.   He’s fond of Lee—quite—and he doesn’t think he ought to be.  (Sometimes in the dead of night, Richard allows himself the comfort of memory, heedless of just how far beyond the line of propriety he’s gone.  But these are only fleeting moments, followed to often by guilt).  The guilt surfaces now.

As though he can see the turmoil behind Richard’s eyes, because he leans his elbows on his knees and says: “Eh, Rich.”

“What?”  He’s wary, palms sweating where they’re pressed against his thighs.  The midnight secrets he’s been hiding even from himself are about to be brought to light.

“You’re not getting in over your head, are you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  The compulsion to hide becomes too strong; opening his laptop to begin work again seems the easiest out.  Work has always saved him before. 

The document swims before his eyes, a mess of unintelligible numbers, and Graham sighs.

“Like him, do you?”

“You obviously did, you’re the one who chose him.”  Richard attempts to collect his thoughts with fingers hovering over his keyboard in a ploy Graham is too savvy to fall for.  He sighs and looks up, trying to maintain his composure.  “Honestly, Graham, you’re worrying over nothing.”

“If you say so.”  Graham doesn’t believe him, but doesn’t press the matter either.   He claps his hands upon his knees and clears his throat.  “We’re going for a drink tonight, you in?”

“I—”  The only thought inhabiting Richard now is the idea of Lee twisting in his lap, whispering breathlessly into his ear—words punctuated by moans—of a film he’d bring, of how Richard would love it—moans punctuated by laughter.

Graham raises an eyebrow at him, daring him to refuse, to belie his earlier assurances that Lee provides a service and nothing more.  The desire to refuse is strong; it’s been a week too long since he’s seen Lee and the thought of opening his door to that welcome smile isn’t one he gives up easily.  He aches, but Graham still hasn’t spoken and so he says: “Yes, of course.  Not too late, mind.”

Now Graham does press.  “Got other plans?” he asks in as innocuous a voice as he can muster.  Richard sees right through him; his over protectiveness striking an ill note.

“Yes,” Richard says, more brusquely than is his wont.  For the first time since Graham took it upon himself to protect Richard from his life, he feels the need to protect himself from Graham.  “Work tomorrow morning.”

He turns back to his work with renewed determination, fingers flying over the keys though he has no idea whether he’s doing the thing properly.  He’ll complete it later when he’s gathered his thoughts. 

Graham chuckles.

“Good, then.  You better be done by seven or I’ll hog-tie you and drag you out myself.”

“Yes, yes, I promise.”  Richard reminds himself that Graham’s only looking out for him, though he ignores the tail of the thought that tells him his friend’s worry is completely justified.  He isn’t yet ready to admit it to himself.  “Seven o’clock.”

When Graham shuts the door behind him, Richard puts his head in his hands.  The lingering anticipation of the day dissipates, replaced by anxiety as he thinks of spending the evening in a dark bar, lurking in shadow and nursing a glass of wine while his fellows tell raucous stories and protest his every attempt to cut out early.  He’s exhausted and disappointed beyond reason.  Suddenly the tension he’s been building in his breast all week returns.

Last weekend Lee laid him out flat on his belly and teased him with the lightest of touch until he begged, and then teased him some more.  Every flicker of clever fingers and brush of cinnamon breath against the insides of his thighs drove him mad, until at last he felt the strong hands part his cheeks and the roughness of beard and the slick warmth of tongue plying him open with fingers swiftly to follow.  He was instructed not to touch his cock and Lee’s punishing grip prevented him from grinding into the sheets.  It was one of the more torturous hours of his life, lying prostrate and helpless against the assault of writhing fingers inside him and the murmured commands that led to a pinnacle he had never reached before only to be flipped violently onto his back and sucked to another completion that numbed him to the world.

He aches for whatever release Lee might seek to dole out tonight.  Sometimes it’s rough, sometimes languid, sometimes merely a long embrace and prose drawled into his ear.  It changes weekly, though never at Richard’s behest.  It matters not; whatever pleasures Lee visits on him are equally welcome and equally soothing.  The only bitterness comes when Lee departs in the morning, ever cheerful and with a lingering kiss. 

 Such relief is not to be this evening, and the unwelcome thoughts Richard fights to keep at bay flood in as the extent of his disappointment surfaces.  It’s a terrifying realization ripped from his breast and lain at his feet in bloody truth.  He swallows hard, intimidated by what sway Lee holds over him.

“Shit,” he sighs.

If only Graham left him alone with his misery.  The misery of loneliness and vague disconnection from the people around him was better by far than the misery he now endures in knowing that there is a possibility to be otherwise.  Whether they’re genuine or not, the endless tricks in Lee’s arsenal have drawn out a Richard he didn’t know existed.  He wonders if there _is_ more to him than he knows, some part of him that exists only because Lee sees it.  He wonders whether that Richard—the one who knows at least a minutiae of happiness—might disappear if there’s no one around to see it.

If Graham pulls him up from a lofty perch of normalcy, Lee offers him a push.  Richard rubs his eyes.  The contrast is too stark for him to bear, as he loves Graham dearly and has appreciated his concern in the past.  With Lee, everything is different.

Often Lee tells him to stop thinking so much.  One evening he brought his own remedy, one Richard was loathe to try.  Lee cajoled, eventually winning him over with one final plea: “You’d never had Moscato before, either, but I swear I saw a bottle in your fridge earlier tonight.”

With that, Richard accepted the spliff Lee offered and found himself resting in a hazy world where the only solid thing was Lee’s thigh beneath his head.  Somehow, whether it be Lee or the marijuana, he spoke when he should have remained silent.

“I think I’m meant to be alone,” he said.  He was fascinated with the way Lee’s chest rose and fell with breath.  He wondered if he might press his ear against Lee’s chest and feel a real heartbeat to confirm that this was real.  Everything felt distant, but not in the starkly unpleasant way it did in light of day.

The proclamation seemed to surprise Lee, who stopped stroking his hair and frowned down at him.  “Why do you say that?”  Beneath Richard’s curious gaze, his breath hitched a bit.

Richard still isn’t sure what prompted him to speak at all; they had a comfortable silence between them.  Remaining silent seems now the smarter decision, but Lee has a way of prying things out of people.  Even now Richard flushes in embarrassment to remember what he revealed of himself that night: even more than he already had.

“I’ve been that way for so long,” he’d said. 

Lee hadn’t laughed.  “You’re not alone now, are you?” he asked softly.  Instead of resuming ministrations to Richard’s hair, he traced the line between Richard’s furrowed brows, smoothing it out with one fingertip.

“I don’t feel alone when you’re here.”  He didn’t even blush to say it.

“Good.”  Lee bent at an impossible angle and kisses his fluttering lashes.   Raising a hand to his lips, Lee took another long inhale and bent against to brush his lips against Richard’s, coaxing them open, exhaling a long stream of smoke that Richard took without question.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he told Lee.

“Mm.  Stop thinking so much and enjoy.”

“I’ve never smoked before.”

“You’ve never done a lot before.  Here, turn over and I’ll rub your back.”  Richard obliged, one leg dangling off the sofa.  He gathered the folds of Lee’s trousers in one sweaty fist as Lee ran knuckles down the length of his spine and back up again in motion more soothing than stress-relief.  He wanted to kiss Lee, but couldn’t bring himself to move.

After a moment, Richard sighed.  “Do you know, the only place I’ve ever been outside the U.K. is New York?”  When Lee only continued his silent petting, Richard continued.  “I almost went to Toronto once.  For the theatre.  It’s supposed to be fantastic, but something came up.  Somehow I just never made it.”

“I sort of pegged you for a traveler.  You know, old-world gentlemanly type.  Travel the globe, speak six different languages, read poetry, watch _theatre_.”  Lee chortled at his own cleverness and the sound made Richard smile.

“You expect a lot out of me.”  It didn’t hurt to admit.  “I’m afraid I don’t live up to your standard.”

“Don’t be dumb,” Lee said, prodding him in the back.  “I already told you about that.”

“I think you might be the only one.”

“Richard.”  That time Lee tugged at his ear.  “Stop that.  You’re thinking again.”

“I can’t stop.  You’re so—”  Perhaps it’s the drugs or perhaps it’s the company, but Richard couldn’t think clearly.  It didn’t bother him as much as it should have.  Even now, remembering how vulnerable he made himself, he isn’t bothered.

He had received another gentle pinch.  “So what?”

“I’m not sure.  So something.”  Richard yawned and rubbed his cheek against Lee’s leg.  “Too something.  Too much.  Too much for me.”

“I grew up in Texas, you know.”  The offer made Richard roll over and squint up at him.  Somehow it was surprising to hear; he’d imagined a more glamorous life, perhaps jet-setting with parents and tutors and somewhere along the way learning how to charm anyone he came across.  It occurred to Richard then that he misjudged Lee as badly as Lee had misjudged him.  “Didn’t even finish high school on time.  I thought I was going to be famous or something, but Julliard didn’t want me without a degree so I went back.  Oldest kid to graduate in my class.”

“Really?”

“Really, really!”  Lee’s nose wrinkled as he laughed.  “See?  Nothing impressive about me, so no need to impress.”

“Plenty impressive about you,” Richard mumbled.  By the time Lee got around to blowing another stream of smoke into his mouth, Richard was half asleep.

He has a vague recollection of Lee grunting and hefting him into his arms, carrying him to bed, pulling off his shoes and belt.  But when he woke, he was alone.

Sighing heavily, Richard decides that Graham has never steered him wrong before.  And, as he says, Lee is a whore.  It is still daylight, and therefore rationality must reign.  It is nearly physically painful to make the phone call.  He leaves a curt message out of fear that if he goes on too long, he’ll change his mind.

He doesn’t think he could live it down should be cancel on Graham and go home to Lee.

Seven comes around sooner than he imagines and Graham manifests in his door exactly on time and with Richard’s coat thrown over his arm.

The night is longer than he imagines but no longer than he expected.  The wine and the boisterous company is enough to send him directly to sleep and far from thoughts of Lee’s heavy weight in bed beside him.  When he wakes, it’s with fresh encouragement: he’s made it a week without Lee, surely that means he isn’t in as far over his head as he fears.  He fills the strange emptiness he feels with tea and too many cigarettes.

 

His resistance doesn’t last long.  As soon as Graham’s concern is assuaged by a few weekends out and a significantly cheerful façade, Richard breaks.  There’s been trouble from every department and the Jackson project is behind schedule and despite all that, Graham still wants to visit a brewery downtown on Saturday night. 

As the phone rings and rings, Richard takes comfort in the fact that it’s a last resort.  The hand he clutches his mobile in is trembling with tension.  He’s thought of Lee nearly every day, wondering where he spends his days and ruminating with no little jealousy on where he spends his nights.  The jealousy, like the affection, is something he can no longer run from.

When he answers, Lee seems surprised but he hides it well.  “I thought maybe I offended you,” he chastises.  Richard can almost see the familiar little smile: crooked with just a hint of teeth and tongue between.

“I’ve been preoccupied with other matters.”  Richard shouldn’t feel this pressing need to apologize, and the urge makes him short.

If Lee notices, he takes no offense.  “Business as usual, eh?  Well, I’m assuming you have some free time now, since you’re calling on me again.”

“If you’re free, of course.”  He’s making an appointment, Richard tells himself, though the ache in his belly tells otherwise. He has to swallow in order to speak.

Best not to get hopes up: Lee may yet have other arrangements.

“I’m always at your disposal, _Mr. Armitage_.”

Richard knows it’s meant as a jibe, but it cuts deeply.  “Don’t call me that.”

There’s a pause, and when Lee speaks again his tone is cajoling.  “What’s the matter?”  To tell himself that that concern is contrived a disservice to Lee, whom he knows well enough to be sincere in almost everything he says.  “Richard?”

The inquiry chokes Richard; he feels closer to tears than he’s been in years.  It’s all been too much, and while he’s managed well enough without comfort all this time, he’s missed Lee’s easy company more than he wants to admit.  “It’s been a long week.”  It isn’t exactly a lie; he only excludes: _I need you_.

“Has it?  Well, I’ve got just the thing for you, then.”

The promise doesn’t go unnoticed.  Immediately Richard’s heart begins to beat faster; this time he can’t ignore the fact that it’s anticipation of Lee’s smile rather than the exquisite pleasures he offers the body.  “Another lesson?” he croaks.  “You nearly killed me last time.”

Lee chuckles.  “The usual time, then?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear there will be actual porn in this prostitution AU.
> 
> Also sorry about the pacing. Can't figure out how to make this work. Edits for this chapter may be in order as well once I've done with the whole thing.


	5. Chapter 5

Lee is late and it’s making Richard nervous.  Lee is never late.

The hand of the clock glides soundlessly across its face, easing from eight to a quarter past and beyond, until at half-past Richard slinks into the kitchen full of resignation and pours himself a glass a wine to ease his heartache.  He really ought to know better by now, he tells himself, and pours another glass for good measure.  It’s been a while since he’s been properly drunk, but tonight seems the night.

He carries his glass into the bedroom ad begins to undress, resigned to a sleepless night wrestling with mistakes past and present.  Graham was right to be worried—as he always is.  With a sigh, Richard strips off his loosened tie and shrugs off his button-down.  As he does every night Lee is not here, it makes its way into the proper hamper for the housekeeper and dry cleaners.  Just as he’s about to free his arms of his undershirt, there’s a rap at the door.

For a long moment, Richard stands frozen, fingers curling more and more tightly in the cotton as his mind races to catch up with his heart.  It’s an impossible task; Richard find himself abandoning his solitude and racing for the door, bare feet slapping loudly against the floors.  His mind tells him it’s only Graham, knowing as he always does that something’s amiss and come to console him and warn him against his own foolishness, but his throat is closed on hope.

He should be surprised that it is Lee, looking frazzled but cheerful, standing at his threshold.  “Sorry!” he chirps, shrugging.  “I forgot my—”

Richard grabs him by the nape and drags him inside slamming the door and pressing him up against it, silencing his explanation with a biting kiss.  The lips beneath his own part willingly; Lee’s tongue snakes out against his own, drawing him in deeper even as broad palms cup the back of his head to hold him there.  The sound of the bag Lee always carries over one shoulder hitting the floor barely registers.

“Missed me?” The words are felt more than heard, breath loosed into his own throat to be swallowed down with the honeyed thrum of Lee’s voice tingling against his lips.

Richard drags hiss kisses down Lee’s throat, jerking his shirt open heedless of the buttons he frees from their moorings and scatters on the floor.  “Be quiet,” he begs.  Sweat already dews under his tongue and he laps it up greedily just for the taste of familiar skin and the tang of cologne.  “Stop talking.”

“Richard—”

This time Richard cannot bear the concern and he puts one hand over Lee’s mouth to stop him prattling. “Don’t.”

He closes his eyes and drops to his knees, pressing his fingers eagerly into Lee’s willing mouth and groaning as he feels familiar suction, the tongue tracing every whorl of his fingerprints and delving between, his teeth scraping lightly before he pulls them in again.  He rubs his cheek against the sparse hair leading from the navel—he flicks his tongue there just to hear a gasp he stifles by thrusting his fingers back inside—and fumbles open the belt buckle.

“Richard—”  Lee tries again, but Richard silences him, smearing saliva over parted lips and feeling his own name writ against his palm.

Lee’s only half hard when he puts his mouth to work, but raking nails over heaving breast and peaked nipple makes him harder and Richard feels hands clutch his head harder than is Lee’s wont.  The smell of sex and sweat is strong here between Lee’s legs and he takes in as much as he can just to get closer; he inhales sharply through his nose and chokes a bit as nails rake his scalp and Lee groans low in his throat.  “God, God,” he’s murmuring, and Richard glances up to find Lee’s gaze fixed on him, something delirious in his eyes.  He closes them and tilts his head back and Richard feels a flare of anger that has him jerking Lee’s trousers from his hips so he can grip his backside and pull him in—in—in until he can’t breathe anymore and Lee is whimpering and begging wordlessly.

Is this what it feels like?  Is it love?

The needs of his own body are second string now as he pulls back, gasping, to stare at the spider-silk string of saliva and fluid suspended between his lower lip and the tip of Lee’s cock.  It breaks and he lurches forward again to suck him down, feeling the tense and flex of firm muscle in his palm as Lee’s hips jerk forward.

“Is this what you want?” Lee rasps, cupping his jaw.  A calloused thumb traces his cheekbone and Richard groans in protest.  “You want me to use you?”  Lee deepens his thrusts and drags Richard’s head down against him, but still he does not seem close to spilling.  “Do you want to be used, Richard?”  His tone is a deep, commanding one Richard has never heard before and it jars him, stokes the anger in his belly.

He’s angry with himself, and with Lee for saying such things, for misreading him so. He frees himself and lurches to his feet to slam their mouths together again.  “No,” he croaks, “no.”  He doesn’t want to explain and he doesn’t want Lee to create a story for them.  It’s enough that Richard knows what’s happening, though Lee may still be in the dark.  It’s enough to pretend even for a little while.

He frees his own neglected prick and grabs Lee by the waist, swallowing his cry and Richard hoists him against the wall and presses his thighs open. Lee’s long limbs twine around him to hold him close.  Their cocks slide together, held tight between the press of their bellies as Richard sets a brutal pace.

“No,” he mumbles again.  He digs his nails into Lee’s thigh.

Everything is hot, so hot, as the sound of wet skin slapping together echoes against the high ceilings with a cacophony of heavy breath and cries wrung from ragged throats for accompaniment.  Lee is jerking in his grip, every feline movement of his spine makes the tip of Richard’s cock catch in the indent of muscle and drawing him closer and closer to the end he longs for and fears.  When this is done he’ll have to explain himself, he’s sure, and all the excuses easy on his tongue in daylight hours won’t suffice to cover this sudden change in character.

Lee buries his face against Richard’s shoulder and he becomes aware of his name as litany upon beloved lips.  He can only urge Lee on, say: “Yes, yes,” as he grinds up harder and feels heat beyond even the furnace of the room gathering low in his stomach.  His limbs prickle, his stomach drops out, and Lee’s urgency is known when his breath begins to hitch, to catch in his throat.

“Come.” Richard isn’t sure whether it’s a plea or a command, but it doesn’t matter when Lee shakes his head.  Loosing Lee’s thigh he arches back and grabs his chin, forcing him to look up.  “ _Come_ , damn you,” he whines, and Lee’s brows draw together in helpless want.

“Come?” he asks, scarcely able to keep his eyes open.  More than anything else he’s ever wanted in his life, he wants to watch Lee come undone underneath him, _because_ of him.  Lee never comes first, never, and Richard wants to be the one to make him lose control.

“Fuck!”

But despite his urging Lee refuses and Richard can hold out no longer; sobbing,a he presses them together and bites down on Lee’s lower lip hard enough to taste blood—it sends him spiraling into orgasm that pulses warmly between them, lewd slick sounds as Lee grinds against his pulsing cock and slams his head back against the wall as he swallows a wail and follows.

Richard slumps against Lee’s weight.

Slowly, those long thighs unwind from his hips and they sink to the floor sprawled around one another in boneless content.  As he catches his breath, Richard becomes aware of Lee whispering against his ear, of the steady pets smoothing sweat from his brow.  Slowly he looks up into Lee’s bleary face, satisfied to see that he’s wrecked the man completely.

“What’s gotten into you?”

There it is.

“Nothing,” Richard mumbles.  He has to fight against Lee’s firm grip to free his face to escape the concern in those eyes.

Surprisingly, Lee lets him remain silent until the sweat and sticky fluid has dried.  They both groan as it catches in hair and overly-sensitive skin, but as they part Lee doesn’t let him go far.  He presses their foreheads together in a brotherly gesture, then brushes his nose and offers him a softer kiss.  Even that breaks open the wound he’s made on that lovely lip and by way of apology Richard draws away now and then to lick the drying blood on Lee’s chin and the crease at the corner of his mouth.  Lee hums softly.

“I’m sorry,” Richard offers hoarsely.  He feels himself enough to look up again.  “It was a long week.”

“Mm.  So you said.  And what made it so long?”

The truth will only ruin everything, but Lee knows when he’s lying.  He doesn’t say _your absence_ , but only shakes his head and rolls onto his back to stare at the white void of the ceiling.  From the corner of his eye he can see that the view of the city outside is blurred by the mist their bodies created on the glass.  Already the cold air outside creates dollops of water that slide down and mar the smooth opaque steam.  “Long hours.”

Lee lets it slide.  He stretches his arms over his head  and arches his back; his longs legs curl against his chest and then reach out, his toes wriggling playfully as he groans in contentment.  “Full of frustration, apparently.”  His jibe is accompanied by a laugh.

Richard gives a noncommittal snort.

“Well, I know a good way to relieve you.”  Lee drapes one leg over Richard’s hips and crawls on top of him.

“I think you already did,” Richard admits.  Despite his earlier misgivings, he smiles.  Reaching up, he cups Lee’s hips and rubs his fingers over the arch of bone there. “Besides, even you don’t have such a shirt refractory period.”

 “’Refractory period’,” Lee snorts. 

“You know what I mean.”

Lee grins.  “Obviously.”  He swoops down to bestow a brief kiss.  “Besides, that’s not what I was thinking of.”

A sigh escapes Richard as Lee sways to his feet and offers a helping hand.  “It’s never the obvious answer with you, is it?  Ah!” 

He’s hoisted to his feet and Lee slings one arm around his shoulders to guide him through the mess of their clothes and toward the bedroom.  “You wouldn’t like me if it was.”

This time Richard’s grin is given freely.

They don’t tumble into bed, but rather Lee shepherds him into the bathroom where he turns on water hot enough to fog the mirrors almost immediately.  When the chilled tiled room is warm they stumble into the water together.

“Let me,” Lee says.  He takes up the bar of soap and begins a slow ministration.

He rubs his hands through Richard’s hair and tickles him behind the ears, sliding fingers around his throat and into the dips of his shoulders.  His palms curve over his arms, gliding down to his wrists before twining their fingers together and cleaning each one of his fingers and between.  “Turn around,” he urges.  His tongue anoints each coiled muscle before he touches, soothing out knots Richard ignores and the tension in his spine.  Fingers dip between his cheeks and tease his hole—drawing a hiss from him—before Lee slides between Richard’s chest and the wall and kneels.  He hoists one of Richard’s feet onto his knee and cleans between his toes, sliding both soapy hands up his calf and thighs.  Water rinses him.  Richard can’t stop watching as Lee presses a kiss to the inside of his knee and commits the same treatment to his other legs.  A last kiss finds his satisfied prick, and then, at long last, his mouth.

“There,” Lee murmurs, cupping his face.  His smile breaks open the split in his lip again; Richard’s touches it.  “Feel better?”

“I’m sorry, I hurt you.”

“Did you hear me complaining?”  Lee chuckles.

He washes in silence, shooting coy looks at Richard as he makes a show of it.  “Haven’t you had your fill?” he teases, shooting a glance downward as Richard’s body tries valiantly to get hard again.  He laughs at the appalled face Richard makes and shakes his head.  Water droplets fly from the mess of his wet hair.  “I’ll have mercy on you,” he assures.”

“You never do.”

He turns the water off and they clamber out to towel each other dry with all the grace of newborn colts, their limbs tangling with their laughter in the damp air until at last Richard drops his towel over Lee’s head to stifle him.  “Bed,” he says, and as always, Lee follows.

 

Beneath white sheets that seem much less sterile with Lee’s weight sinking the mattress beside him, they pass the hours before midnight in idle chatter until at last Lee takes too long to respond and Richard glances over to see his lashes fluttering.  “Tired?” he murmurs.  He presses one thumb against Lee’s lowered lid and his lips to its mate.

“Mm.  You’re the one who had the long day.”

Richard agrees, but notes a darkness under Lee’s eyes he’s never seen before.  Lee shakes his head.  “No,” he says, “don’t ask.  If you did, I couldn’t tell you.”

“No?”

“No.”

Bereft, Richard settles against the pillow and stares up into the shadows.  From far below, a jumble of car horns drift in the window.

“Hey.”  Lee props himself up on one arm.  His eyes gleam in the faint light.  “What’s the matter?”  A hand alights on Ricard’s cheek.

Richard must swallow sorrow before he can speak “What do you mean?”

“You look…contemplative.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.”  After a brief moment in which Richard can think of nothing to say, Lee murmurs: “Care to share what’s on your mind?”

“Nothing I can say aloud,” Richard admits.  It’s as close as he can come to speaking the truth, here alone in a world of their own.  A world Lee built, Richard supposes, though he himself provided the foundation.

Perhaps it’s the night, perhaps his own fraught nerves, but even in the darkness Richard thinks he sees a sadness in Lee’s smile.  He curls closer and rests his head on Lee’s shoulder, slinging an arm around his waist.

“Well,” Lee says softly, his chin bumping the top of Richard’s head, “we all want things we can’t have, I suppose.” His throat bobs as he swallows. 

For a moment, Richard thinks he’ll elaborate, but Lee only lets silence encompass them again and he falls asleep with the sound of a heart thundering rapidly in his ears.

When he wakes, there’s no sign Lee was ever there.


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m sorry to say I’m already engaged for tonight.”

The news, delivered in a voice plagued by distraction, takes Richard by surprise.  He doesn’t want to think on why: after all, he’s making an appointment.  His doctors and his dentists have never been at his beck and call, nor any business associate.  Nevertheless, he cannot hide his disappointment as he says: “Oh.  Well.”

Lee hums on the other end of the line; is it his imagination, or can he hear laughter in the distance?  “I have two Fridays from now free,” Lee offers, “if you’d like to wait.”

To buy himself time, Richard pretends to consult his own schedule.  In truth he knows he keeps his Fridays free: an evening for himself, time with Lee for eating or fucking or talking or sleeping, but free for Lee.  He knows now as he stares at the shining surface of his desk that the strange taste in his mouth is bitterness born of the knowledge that Lee has not done the same.

Before he can speak again, he hears a feminine laugh trill on the other end of the line.  “Lee!” the woman calls, laughing.  “Where did you go?  Get back in here before your lunch gets cold, silly love!”

Lee’s voice is muffled as he shouts back: “I’ll be there in a minute!”

“I’m sorry,” Richard says, clearing his throat as he hasn’t done in what seems ages.  “I didn’t realize I was interrupting something.  I’ll speak with you later.”

“Rich—”

Lest he think twice, Richard hangs up. 

The woman’s voice rings in his ears, pleasant and light.  He can imagine her: beautiful and poised as a starlet of the Golden Age, waiting somewhere on the balcony of an upscale bistro with a sparkling glass of champagne in her hand.  Someone like that suits Lee—a girlfriend, perhaps?  She’s a jet-setter, he’s sure, who flings herself into the distant-most corners of globe to unearth colored strings of philosophy that she brings back for Lee to decorate the bird’s nest of his mind.  Whatever she may be, doubtless she’s far more interesting than stolid Richard might ever hope to be.

Grief wells, choking him.  Was Lee gay at all?  Or single?  All his assumptions came flooding in at once, too many to pick through, and Richard stands and begins pacing his office.  Who is he to assume such things?  What right has he to feel betrayed with the knowledge brought home to him?  It makes no difference, does it, in the grand scheme of things?  He has Lee for a few short hours of the week, and that is all he ever had.  He can go on pretending just as he did their last night together, that Lee is his and his alone.

Somehow he doesn’t think it will ever be the same.

A strangled cry tears his throat and he slams his hand down on the desk, squeezing his eyes closed and trying to force back bitter truth.  It isn’t easily swallowed, not with the memory of Lee’s mouth beneath his own, not with the memory of his eyes glistening with sympathy in the darkness.  Lee is fond of him, that much he knows, but no more than that.  Whatever Richard has read in the lines of his face is merely a reflection of his own desires.

The intercom crackles and Richard asks Fran to hold his calls for the remainder of the day.  He has every intention of slinking away to a quiet bar where no one will recognize him and licking his wounds.  It’s only noon: surely anyone else lurking with lukewarm beer will be at least as miserable as he is.

He finds himself in a windowless basement beneath an old hotel somewhere in Washington Heights.  Occupied only by three others and a yawning aging bartender, it seems the perfect place.  There are sports games playing on old screens set on the bar and atop rickety bookshelves and either end of the establishment.  The crackling noise fills the empty room with men’s enthusiastic voices and the faint sounds of cheering crowds layered overtop of one another; a pleasant distraction from the noise rattling around in his own head.  When he orders an entire bottle of whatever their house pour is, he’s presented with a bottle caked in dust and a glass still spotted from the potwash with nothing more than a cursory comment: “We all gotta get away from the wife time to time, eh?”

To this Richard offers only a noncommittal grunt.

He hides with his own condolence in a dim corner far from the young man with scraggly hair staring down into the dregs of his glass and sets to drowning his sorrows the old-fashioned way. 

Tinny screaming fills the restaurant as one of the games finishes strong, but Richard’s concentration is for the sour wine in his mouth and the way it burns going down.  He finishes half the bottle in four grand swallows, then finally deigns to use the glass he was given.  The young man begins to swear and sends his phone skittering across the bar thud loudly on the floor before burying his fingers in his hair with a growl.

Comforted by schadenfreude, Richard chuckles into his drink. This is the place to be; they are all comrades in heartache here, vulnerable strangers savoring their mutual descent into misery.  Richard’s only distinguishing feature here is the bespoke suit and leather shoes.

His phone vibrates in his pocket.

_where you fuck off to_

Richard wishes desperately that people would leave him alone, but he knows that Graham will find him even buried here.

_I’m in the lower city._

_why_

_Because you warned me, and I didn’t listen._

It’s more than he ought to say.  But because Richard cannot lie to Graham, he tells the truth and resigns himself to another conversation he doesn’t want to have.  He wants to forget, if only for a little while, the last few glorious months of his life.

_pace_

He can’t lie, and he can’t delude himself into thinking he can run.

He hopes Graham doesn’t find Lee and strangle him.  After all, this is all Richard’s fault.

_where are you_

_Alone. And I’d very much like to stay that way._

If there’s a silver lining to this new habit of texting everyone, it’s that no one can hear that you’re drunk and near to tears.

_tough_

A few short moments later: _tell me or the cops are coming with me to find a kidnapped exec_

Shit; he shouldn’t have answered.

_Sixth Ave., some place beneath the Old Windham, I didn’t check the name._

_leave and I’ll kill you_

Richard downs the other half of the bottle and finds himself another, dropping the empty on the bar to be disposed of.  The vintage is different and even fouler than the first, though Richard doesn’t care.  It makes it easier to drink quickly.

He stares at his phone on the sticky tabletop, hoping against hope that it will chime and Lees name will appear on the screen.  It happens rarely, but when Lee contacts him it’s always a pleasant surprise.  Unsurprisingly there is no contact, but it doesn’t stop Richard from picking up the phone and thumbing Lee’s full name, still professionally listed with ‘Mr.’ before.

There is nothing loving in the texts: no endearments, nothing more than _Running late, be there soon!_ or _Do you prefer linguine or fettucine?_ To which Richard answered only that he wasn’t sure of the difference.  He lingers on the one brief text not directly related to an appointment: _Just got served a fantastic deconstructed Benedict, I promise sometime I’ll stay for breakfast and make it for you._

Another one of the unspoken rules between them.  Lee doesn’t come before Richard does and Lee does not stay for breakfast.  It seems that the wine is dredging up all the clues Richard feels he ought to have seen rather than allowing him to escape into a fog where Lee doesn’t exist.

He licks his lips and swallows hard.  He should have seen it, he knows, but he didn’t and now he’s sitting alone in a bar drinking shit wine because he can’t bear to walk into his flat and listen to the bustling laughter audible from the street stories and stories below as he sits in silence and stares at blank walls and crisply folded sheets and his starched shirts hung in a gradient in his closet.  He can’t bear to look at every shining surface he’s ever fucked Lee over.

Never again, he promises himself.

Someone sweeps his bottle off the table.  Richard looks up into Graham’s incredulous face as he examines the label and the orange price sticker peeling away from the glass.  His grunts and says: “Didn’t want a brown paper bag, then?  What’s wrong with St. Martin’s?”  

This draws a snort of half-hearted laughter.  “Too many people.  ‘M hiding, haven’t you realized?”

His friend sinks into the chair opposite his and reaches over to grab his chin.  Richard blushes and feels heat rise in his already-flushed cheeks. “Are you drunk?”

“Obviously,” Richard mumbles, jerking his face free and digging his fingers into his eyes until he sees stars.  He thanks his foresight in returning his first empty bottle to the bar.  “What do you want?”

The answer is caustic.  “A drink.”

Richard groans as he hoists himself from his seat and prays his steps don’t look as unsteady as they feel.  The bartender pours a double of whiskey that smells of drain cleaner that Graham knocks down with aplomb and no complaint.  “What are you doing here?” he says at last.

Instead of answering, Richard finishes his glass and pours another.

“You might as well drink out of the bottle.”

Richard wrinkles his nose.  “Not in front of people.”

“Didn’t think I was ‘people.’  Cut the shit, Rich, I’ve seen you worse.”

Already wallowing, Richard ignores the quip and maintains whatever’s left of his dignity and pours himself another indecently large amount.  Graham doesn’t push, just knocks back the rest of his own drink and leaves the table to get another.  When he returns to the table, Richard puts his head in his hands.  “Do you think I’m a fool?”

Graham leans his elbows on the table.  “Why are you asking?”

“You’ve always been blunt with me before.”  His irritation is audible.  He doesn’t want Graham here.  He doesn’t want to hear Graham’s answer.

“I don’t think you’re an idiot.”

“Come on, Graham.”

The wine is settling heavy in his stomach at last and it’s just as sour there as it is in his mouth.

“Listen, Rich, I don’t have a lot to say about this whole thing.  Guess it’s sort of my fault for getting you into this mess in the first place.  Wasn’t my intention, but I know you and I should have known better.”

“I don’t think I’m stupid.  I don’t know how it happened, but I—” 

“Don’t say it.  Bury it.  It’s done.”

The wine’s given him courage.  He can’t explain how he’s ended up here, not in words that Graham will understand.  In retrospect it seems as if the thing was a force on nature: unstoppable, even had he seen it coming.  How to put into words the way the lines around Lee’s eyes inhabit his dreams, the way the ghost of his laughter cheers Richard, the way even the thought of seeing Lee mitigates his most monumental of failures.  Richard isn’t sure how to go back to a life where there is no light at the end of the tunnel.  “What if I can’t?”

“You have to, yeah?”   

“Yes.”

 

Graham leaves him half hungover and curled beneath his sheets.  In the morning, with an aching head and churning stomach, Richard phones Lee to apologize for his manner and to arrange what Richard promises himself will be his last appointment.  His heart will break if he doesn’t see Lee one last time before he puts this all behind him.

When Lee arrives he’s uncharacteristically subdued.  He hasn’t brought anything with him this time: no food, no pot, no DVD.  “Are you all right?” he asks, lacing their fingers together to lead Richard into the bedroom.  He watches Richard’s face closely as he undresses.  “You’ve been strange these last few weeks.”

“Of course I’m all right.”

Richard allows himself to be undressed.  He closes his eyes and memorizes the careful way Lee moves around him as he slides his shirt off his arms, the way he curls around Richard’s back and kisses his throat and shoulder as he strips him of his trousers.  Every rustle of cloth, every breathless sigh, every burning brush of fingertips against his trembling abdomen is savored as the last he’ll ever have.  When he turns in the Lee’s arms he feels every millimeter of skin against his own, the spark of each tickle of hair and brush of new beard growth is as electric as the first prick of Moscato against his tongue.  The cool crisp scent of his apartment is subsumed by the musk of Lee’s sweat and cologne and Richard spends long minutes lavishing attention on the constellation of freckles dotting his shoulders, memorizing their taste against his tongue as he inhales deeply of that scent where it gathers beneath Lee’s ear.

“Richard.”

The timbre of Lee’s voice resonates through his chest as he presses him back and back and back until Lee’s legs strike the edge of the bed and he collapses onto it with splayed legs.

“Let me look at you,” Richard says hoarsely.

He drags his eyes over every inch of sprawled limbs and follows his gaze with his hands.  Long lean legs, the delicate bone of wrist and ankle and hip, the curve of backside and broad strong shoulders pressed back to lengthen his belly to a concave loveliness that highlights the soft place below piano shadowed ribs, the dark smudge of lashes fluttering against arch of cheekbone, the slope of his nose leading to a beautiful bow of upper lip.

With no prodding Lee lets him crawl between his thighs ad slide into him.  He wraps those legs around Richard’s and slides the ball of one foot against Richard’s calf, the other pressing against Richard’s hip as he drives in with languid thrusts.

_I love you_ , he mouths against Lee’s lips, punctuating each word with a slip of his tongue into the wet warmth of Lee’s mouth to swallow his soft moans. 

Like this, slow and sweet, he pretends that this is all his and that Lee wasn’t in another person’s bed only the night before.  He lays claim with all he has to ever part of Lee and imagines that Lee is doing the same: using his palms to memorize the lee between the wing of Richard’s shoulder blades and the flex of his ass as he glides in farther and farther.

The words that so desperately want to materialize linger on his tongue and he spells it out again in silence.  _I love you._

“Oh, God.”  Lee’s voice is trembling as hard as his body as he arches his neck back and squeezes his eyes closed.  “ _Richard_.”

“Don’t,” Richard rumbles.  He keeps it up.

“I can’t—can’t—”

“Then don’t.”

Lee’s shuddering grows and he turns his head to press his face into the pillow; his pulse is thundering in his temple and as his body starts to clench down so hard Richard can hardly breathe he bends down to press his lips there as Lee comes hard between them, slick and hot and smearing the sweat between them.

Drawing back to let Lee catch his breath and watching as he barely swallows sobs, Richard takes up a dollop of come on his fingertip and sucks it clean before slipping out of his body and crawling down the bed to clean up the mess with his tongue.  Lee moans a protest but Richard pins his hips to bed to finish the job before rolling him onto his belly and sliding in again.  He presses his cheek to Lee’s shoulder and feels his thrusts staggering, picking up pace, and he groans and bites it down: _I love you_.

The world narrows to the slick tightness around him and heat rushes up the base of his spine before he collapses atop Lee’s limp form and clutches it to him.  His arms go numb beneath their combined weight.  After a moment Lee dislodges him and rolls onto his side to look him over.  Whatever thoughts a churning inside him are veiled to Richard behind a cool façade he’s never seen before.

The distance between them seems to grow, a sea of darkness as wide as the Atlantic.  Though he reaches across to wipe at the blush on Lee’s cheeks, the man still doesn’t speak.  For the first time since meeting Lee, he feels as if he _must_ speak if only to solidify the relief slowly replacing anguish.

Everything will be all right in the morning.  Lee will be gone, his life will be mundane, but he will be whole.

After all, his mother used to tell him that everything looks better in light of day and, like Graham, his mother is rarely wrong about these things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there.


	7. Chapter 7

Upon entering the building Monday morning, Richard is informed he has a visitor.  Ms. Lilly is in his the south conference room, Philippa tells him, and is ready at his convenience.  She doesn’t know what the meeting is regarding, nor whom she represents.

Richard leaves his coffee and his briefcase on his desk, giving a cursory glance at his memos and the number of voicemail messages to find out just how little time he has before he has to return to the daily grind.  It’s not much.

Pale morning light is streaming through the wall of windows on the north side of the building, illuminating the slim figure gazing out at the dusting of early winter snow drifting down on the city.  She touches the glass and the warmth of her skin leaves a mark there.  So as not to startle her, Richard clears his throat.

The moment she turns, Richard knows exactly who she is—and she’s everything he dreamed she might be.  She’s slim and tall, swaying gracefully on her high heels, her dress draped from her shoulders in shimmering folds of navy satin.  In manicured hands she clutches a small envelope that crinkles when she grips it.  After a moment of gazing at Richard, she gives him a sweet smile that catches him completely off-guard.

When she speaks, her husky voice has him imagining legions of men falling at her feet.  “You’re nothing like what I imagined.  No wonder he wouldn’t spill all the details—I’d want you all for myself!”

Richard expected to be told off by a jealous lover, or perhaps given a sad explanation that Lee has made his decision and chosen her over his life in other men’s beds, but this is neither.  Her heels click on the marble floor as she crosses it with broad strides to press her hand against his arm and peck his cheek.  The scent of water lily surrounds him.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t—don’t quite understand.”

“I’m Evie,” the woman explains.  Her eyes are still flickering over his face and she has the same unnerving stare Lee does.  “Lee sent me.”

“Did he?”

“To give you this.”  She smiles again, though there is sadness in the lines of her.  “I did tell him I’d rather not, but you know Lee.  He’s hard to resist.”

There’s nothing to do but agree.  He clenches the envelope in one sweaty fist and listens to the paper crumple.  In invoice, perhaps, for services rendered above and beyond?  After one particularly spectacular weekend in which the glow had lasted well into the next week, Graham had explained BFE and given Richard another stern look.

“I’m sure it’s important,” Richard murmurs.

Evie lets out a tinkling laugh and pets his face.  Her gaze is that of a mother looking upon her child at the precipice of adulthood: knowing and mournful.  “He sends his regards, though that and the letter are all he sent me with.  If it’s not too much to ask, I’d give you my own advice.”

Once again Richard finds himself on his home turf and outplayed by a stranger.  He nods, though his rattled peace of mind is shaken and all he wants to do is ask Lee’s woman to leave him in peace.  After all, she’s already won, if there was ever a contest at all.

“There aren’t a lot of people like Lee, you know.”  She pats his cheek again.  “Don’t forget it.”

As if he could.  “I won’t.”

It was an insincere promise, one his tight grip of the letter belied.  All his intentions to move on are still fresh in his mind and despite this unexpected encounter, he’s bound and determined to keep his resolution. 

“Good.  I’ll take off, then.  My son’s only in day-care half the day and I think I’m already late.  But what’s a friend to do?  I’ve got to go. You take care.”

She offers him another brush of her lips and departs with as much grace as she’d approached with, clicking down the hallway and bidding Fran and Philippa a cheerful goodbye.

For long moments Richard stays where he is.  He really ought to throw the letter away; Friday night was to be the last, and he couldn’t turn back now lest he go running straight back into the arms of despair.  A lover—perhaps even a wife!—and a child, too.  Richard fingers trace the edge of the much-abused envelope.

He wanders to the window, gazing through the imprints left by Evie’s fingertips down at the city below.  Traffic winds slowly through the maze of high rises, a flickering stream of golden headlamps illuminating the gathering drifts at the fire hydrants and subway entrances.  Cars honk, people yell, and Richard presses his forehead against the frigid glass as the paper finally slices into his fingertip.  There is no blood, but he puts the finger in his mouth anyhow.  It seems suiting, somehow: a dry bleeding out.

To open this is to set the seal of his agony.  Either it will be what he fears ( _I’m sorry, but my life has changed; I can’t do this anymore_ ) or it will end his well-intentioned look into the future ( _you only need to call, you only ever need to call and I’ll be there_ ).  There’s a bin by the door.  There’s a shredder in his office already full of unwanted documents.  Either one is the proper place for the letter in his hand.

But Richard is already opening it, his finger slipping into the sloppily-sealed flap and the sound of rent paper filling the room.  Thin fine paper rustle in his fingertips and for the first time since childhood Richard finds himself praying for the fortitude to do the right thing and leave the end in the past.

Instead he draws away and slumps heavily against the glass and the long fall it shields him from, and draws the letter from its sheath with shaking hands.  The folds are crooked, the corner ripped from clumsy handling, and through the back Richard can see the jagged scrawl of Lee’s writing. It’s all just as messy as Lee and the thought makes him smile.

_Dear Richard,_

What an endearment.  In a last futile effort, Richard tells himself to stop reading.

_I can’t explain this, at least not well enough to have it make any sense.  I don’t know if it even makes sense to me, but it has to be said._

_I don’t know what’s changed lately, but something has and it took me too long to realize what it was.  Then it took me too long to act, and now I feel like it’s too late for both of us.  Maybe I don’t know you as well as I think I do, or I feel like you know me better than you should, or something stupid like that, considering how we keep meeting, so maybe I can’t speak for you and I’m the only one in trouble.  Either way, it’s got to stop._

There’s a few brief lines scribbled out halfway down the page.  Richard closes his eyes on dashed hopes and refolds the letter.  He opens it again before he can put it back in the envelope.

_Nothing makes sense anymore.  Or at least it didn’t.  I’ve been doing what I do for a long time.  I’ve seen a lot of things and been a lot of people, and I don’t regret any of it as much as I regret meeting you.  Mostly because now I have to tell you I can’t see you anymore._

He’s too transparent, Richard realizes.  A sob rises up but does not escape, and Richard nearly rends the letter in two.  But he can’t make himself to that, either, and in some way he wants to see this through if only to know that after this everything will go away.  Lee will _go away_.

_I shouldn’t have done a lot of things I did with you.  I was never very professional, even that first night. I trust my instincts, you know that, and I should have just left it there.  But I suppose I like trouble until it bites me in the ass and so it did.  The other night, the way you were with me, the way you looked at me, I thought you might be up the same shit creek as I am, but you never said anything and you’ve said everything else there is to say to me but you never said what  wanted to hear. ~~I realize I was being stupid to think~~_

_I’m sorry for any trouble I might cause you now.  I promise I can find you a ~~suitable replacement~~ someone else.  Probably better than I am.  I know a lot of people.  Professionals, people with training I just don’t have, and someone who won’t be ~~unprofessi~~ as problematic._

_I think I’m in love with you and I’m sorry for it.  I wish I wasn’t, that I could keep seeing you, but I don’t think I can take it anymore and I don’t want to cause problems for you._

_I really am sorry.  You deserve to be happy, more than anyone I think._

Richard fell once, as a child.  Trying to execute a particularly advanced dance maneuver far beyond his abilities, he landed flat on his back and had to breath knocked from him for so long he feared he would die.  That shock is nothing next to this.

As breath returns a laugh comes bubbling up.  Slow it starts, more a sob than a laugh, and then it crescendos to a madman’s chortle, then such as he has to clap his hand over his own mouth to stifle the noise lest he drawn attention and send someone running for Graham to report his utter breakdown.  Strength goes from his limbs and he sinks weakly down the glass with his legs akimbo like a wounded man’s.  The letter he clutches desperately to his chest and he doesn’t realize that he’s begun to weep until his tears drip into his mouth. 

“God,” he says, “God.”

“Mr. Armi—oh!”

Dean is peering in over an armful of packages to be delivered—an armful he immediately drops as he goes tearing down the corridor and shouting Graham’s name.  Richard can’t even be bothered to care, fraught as he is with relief and anguish and hope and love as he is.  It all rushes through his veins like heady framboise and takes deep sucking breaths to calm himself.

“Rich?”

Graham bursts into the conference room, tie loose around his neck and face flushed with running.  With a growl he waves off Dean and Aidan, who stand panting at his back and glancing between him and Richard with looks of obvious concern.  “Get out of here,” he says, and slams the door in their faces.  “Damn it, man, what’s happened?”

He goes down on one knee and grips Richard’s shoulder with one strong hand, wiping his wet face with the other.  Richard tries to speak through fading, hysterical giggles.

“Nothing—it’s—Graham—it’s nothing—it’s—”

“ _Nothing_?” Graham practically bellows.  He gives Richard a hard shake.  “Snap out of it and tell me—.”

Richard shoves him away and struggles to his feet, staggering and stuffing the letter into his pocket heedless of its delicacy.  He’s grinning so hard it hurts and shaking his head at the same time.  “I have to—to go—I have to—make my excuses, please.”

He twists his wrist free of Graham’s stern grasp and tears for the door.  “ _Please_ , Graham, it’s all right—everything’s all right!”

Whatever abuses Graham hollers after him fall on deaf ears as Richard goes careening down the hallway to grab his briefcase and keys and evacuate the building as quickly as he can.  He hails a cab, jittery all the while and unable to stop laughing.  The cabby eyes him in the rearview, clearly concerned about having a lunatic in his back seat, but he drives with all the haste of any city driver and Richard pulls out his mobile.

_I’ll be home soon.  Come to me._

There is no response, but Richard is too elated to mind.  He has only hundreds in his wallet and leaves one with the driver, too impatient to wait for his change and feeling remarkably generous.  The man shouts after him but Richard ignores him just he ignores the doorman’s polite smile as he pushes through the door before it’s even opened.  Only when he’s begun punching at the button for the lift does he remember to tear back and tell the man: “Pace.  Lee Pace.”

“Very tall gentleman, sir, yes, sir.”

“Buzz as soon as he gets here,” Richard says, and presses a bill into his hand.  “Thank you.”

The apartment is as crisp as usual, though the housekeeper is still there shining the unused silverware as though it’s been used recently.  “Go, Anna,” Richard tells her, “I’’ be home the rest of the day.  Go and come back tomorrow.  No, no don’t come until Saturday.”

She obliges him, though takes longer than he likes to pack her things and vacate the premises. 

Still no answer, and Richard tries to call only to have the phone carry on ringing until Lee’s voice chirps: _You’ve reached Lee Pa_ —  Richard hangs up and sends another text: _Lee.  Come._

The buzzer sounds just as his phone chimes.

 _I’m here_.

Richard throws open the door, but the entryway to the two top-level flats is empty.  The lift pins, the light comes one, and he throws himself down the hall as Lee slumps out of the elevator.  They slam together and Richard grabs his face, kissing him through all his protests until the lift doors close again and they're locked together.

“Richard!” Lee gasps, but allows himself to be pressed against the wall.  His hands hover uncertainly, and Richard shakes his head and kisses him over and over.  “What—?”

“You—mm—idiot—you idiot!”

“What are you doing?”  The words are sloppy, breathed into and against his mouth.  “Richard, what are you doing?”

Richard slams the stop button, though he knows it will trigger the management’s intervention.  He needs only minutes.  “Lee, shut up, just shut up for a moment.”

Lee looks ragged, now that Richard truly sees him.  His eyes are dim and tired, dark with confusion as he searches Richard’s face.  His hair is sticking up in all directions and his face is ragged with stubble.  His scarf is askew, his jacket tugged tightly around his body as if it will protect him from Richard’s fervor.

“Evie found me, she gave me—”

“I’m sorry,” Lee interrupts, sounding younger than he has before.  “I really am.  I know it was cowardly but I couldn’t face it.”

The lights click off.  Moments later the red emergency lights illuminate Lee’s despondent face.  A automated female voice informs them that in less than five minutes the elevator will be operational and will return to the top floor.

“You have no idea, do you?”  Richard stares at him in wonder, then breaks out laughing again.

Immediately Lee becomes indignant.

 “Don’t laugh at me!  I’ve never—!”  Another kiss shuts him up quite effectively, though this one is much gentler than the first.

“I know, I know,” Richard murmurs, sucking on his lower lip until Lee sways into his arms.  He wraps them tightly about his waist to prevent retreat and licks the little cupid’s bow that so enchants him.  “I’m not laughing at you,” he breaths, “never.  Never.  Lee—what you said.”

“I meant it.  I don’t mean to take it back.”

“Good.”

This time Lee opens his mouth willingly, moaning and resting his substantial weight against Richard.  He remembers his own weak relief and gladly bears the weight, carrying the both gently to the ground.  Between slick, sucking kisses, Lee says: “I’m messy.”

“Yes.”

“I snore.”

“Uh huh.”

“I hate horror movies.”

“I won’t make you watch them.”

At long last, when they’re both breathless and panting, gulping down air like it’s the last they’ll ever have, Lee sobs wetly and pushes his face against Richard’s shoulder.  “I’ll get snot on your shirt,” he hiccoughs.

That, too, is all Richard ever wants.  “Good,” he says into Lee’s hair, smoothing it out of his face so he can lick away the steady drip of tears before they fall.  “Lee.  Come upstairs.”

Wiping his nose inelegantly on the back of his hand, Lee offers his crooked smile.  “Only if you say it.”

“Must I?”

“I did.”

Fondly, Richard brushes his knuckles against the flushed skin of his cheek and cups his nape.  “I’ve been half in love with you since we met.”

“And now?”  The tentative hope in Lee’s face changes the shade of his eyes and he leans forward as if he’ll have another kiss.  Richard takes his chin in hand to still him and kisses the line between his brows.

“Now I can say it.  Is this enough, is this good enough for you?  I’ve never heard anything happier in my life.”  Another fond pet and he says honestly: “I wouldn’t ask you to quit your job.”

Ducking his head, Lee shots him a shy smile.  It almost makes Richard laugh again, just with the glee of seeing Lee s vulnerable.  “You wouldn’t need to,” he murmurs.  “I—I quit taking clients months ago.  I thought I could pretend, you know—”

This laugh Richard can’t bite back no matter how hard Lee blushes.  “You _are_ an idiot.  And so am I.  We could have saved ourselves a lot of heartache, you know.  Being honest.”  He wonders if the swelling warmth inside him is audible in his voice.  Judging by the way Lee grows even shyer, he supposes it must.  He kisses away the pleased flush only to draw another when he says: “And you’re not as good as reading people as you might think, love.  I was all but crawling at your feet.”

“You weren’t the first, or the only one.  People think they love me, but-what you said about me not being me….  I never had to be part me with you.  I was just….”  Lee swallows.  “Happy.”

Happy, Richard decides as the lift springs to life and shudders as it begins its ascent, is a very good thing to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue to follow, and then the journey is done!


	8. Chapter 8

“I don’t know how you do that without killing yourself.”

Lee is sitting on the toilet, toweling his damp hair with one hand as he watches Richard shave.  Through the open door Richard can see their unmade bed and hear music filtering in from the little iPod dock on the counter in the kitchen: some lamenting mid-nineties band Richard can never remember the name of, but Lee likes them and he shimmies his hips when he’s putting the coffee on so they can’t be all bad.

Much to his own surprise, Richard likes the mess Lee brings with him.  The flat is homey now, with their shoes jumbled by the door and Lee’s jacket over the back of the sofa and dirty dishes in the sink.  He let Anne go with a glowing recommendation when he found out that Lee is just as adamant about cleaning up his own messes as he is about making them (though Richard knows he won’t ever remember where he last dropped his mobile or his keys).

“What?” he asks, sliding the straight razor over the last tricky bits of his jaw and flinging the cream into the sink.  He wipes the remains away with a towel that doesn’t match anything else in the room.  He supposes Lee thinks it’s funny to have little out-of-place tidbits sprinkled about as reminders of past adventures.  This particular towel had been stolen from a hotel in Osaka when Lee had joined him on one of his longer business trips.  Remembering the joy on Lee’s face when the word “Japan” had come up makes Richard smile to this day.  He isn’t one to seek out new territory, but it doesn’t bother him so much when he know he can return to this cluttered little flat and the indents of their bodies in their mattress.

“Shave like that.  It takes forever, doesn’t it?”  Lee grimaces as he cleans the water from the inside of his ears with a pinky, then wraps the damp towel around his hip and stretches.  “My dad used to have a straight razor.”

“Are you calling me old?”  Richard feigns disdain that Lee never falls for and gets the tip of Lee’s tongue poking out from between his lips in response.  “Careful, or I’ll spank you for your sass.”

“Not a deterrent,” Lee sings.  “And you’re not old, just old-fashioned.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never used one.”  Richard cleans the blade, then whips up another lather with the small brush.  His stone is nearly gone; he’ll have to get another.  He smiles and pushes Lee back down onto the toilet, nudging his knees apart to get between.  “Maybe it’s my turn to teach you something.”

“You’ve taught me plenty,” Lee counters.  Despite the cocky look he aims up, he’s getting a bit red in the cheeks and Richard knows he’s played his cards right.

“Saying ‘hello’ in Russian hardly counts.”

“I can’t remember it anyway.”  Lee sniffs, and Richard taps him on the nose with his finger.

“Liar,” he admonishes.  “You’ve got a head for language if only you’d study.”

“No heart for studying.”

“Liar.”  Richard cups Lee’s jaw and tips his head back.  “Now stay still.”  He brushes the blunt side of the blade against the bob of Lee’s Adam’s apple, then sets it aside.  Gently enough to tickle—and he enjoys the way Lee squirms—he brushes the lather over chin and jaw and throat.  Carefully he unsheathes the blade and sets it against tender skin. 

Lee closes his eyes and stays obediently still, hands draped between his knees.  He’s breathing a bit raggedly through his nose, looking at Richard through lowered lashes.  The scrape of the blade makes him gasp; the close shave is why Richard will always use a straight-edge instead of the easy contraption currently residing in Lee’s side of the vanity. Judging by the way Lee tilts his head and breathes deep and slow, his mouth a little open, Richard has a new convert.  Blissful in the familiar confines of their home, he scrapes every last in of stubble from Lee’s skin then wipes him clean and kisses the soft skin revealed there.

“Good lesson,” Lee mumbles, dropping his forehead against Richard’s chest.  He whines and wraps his arms around Richard’s waist to draw him in close.  “Can’t we just go back to bed?”  He cocks one pleading brow that makes Richard want to say _yes, whatever you want_.

“This was your idea, darling,” he says instead, bending to kiss away crowning discontent.  “And I don’t want to make a bad impression on your parents.”

“They’re already half in love with you.  Just blame it on me and they’ll buy it hook, line, and sinker.”

“Get dressed.”

Lee groans in defeat and edges around Richard to go hunt for a suitable shirt.  As he passes, Richard smacks him hard on the behind and he yelps and turns around, wide-eyed.

With false gravity, Richard tells him: “I did give you fair warning about getting a spanking.”

Lee grins.  “Pervert.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy endings all around! 
> 
> Thank you so much to you lovely people for all your comments, and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Les Bijoux by Charles Baudelaire.
> 
> Written for a prompt from the kink meme.


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